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MORMON SAINTS | 



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THE STORY of JOSEPH SMITH, 

HIS GOLDEN BIBLE, and 

THE CHURCH HE 

FOUNDED 



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By GEORGE SEIBEL 



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PRICE. FIFTY CENTS 







THE MORMON SAINTS 



By the Same Author 

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THE LESSING COMPANY 

Box 383 - Pittsburgh, Pa. 



THE 

Mormon Saints 



THE STORY OF JOSEPH SMITH, HIS 

GOLDEN BIBLE, AND THE 

CHURCH HE FOUNDED 

BY 
GEORGE SEIBEL 



PITTSBURGH 

THE LESSING COMPANY 

1919 



^t 



Copyright, 1919, by 
THE LESSING COMPANY 



Sfcp 22!9!3 

©CU529896 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. An American Islam 7 

II. "Job Smith, Prophet" 14 

III. The Book of Mormon 24 

IV. Birth of a New Religion 37 

V. Nauvoo the Beautiful 47 

VI. To the Promised Land 53 

VII. Mormon Beliefs and Practices 60 

VIII. The Mormon War 70 

IX. In Solomon's Footsteps 76 

X. Scheming for Statehood 85 

XI. Acts of the Apostles 92 

XII. What Will Be the End ? 99 



5 It is often and truly said, that 
past ages were pre-eminently 
credulous, as compared with our 
own; yet the difference is not so 
much in the amount of the cre- 
dulity, as in the direction which 
it takes. Men are always pre- 
pared to accept, on very slight 
evidence, what they believe to be 
exceedingly probable. 

— Lecky. 



The Mormon Saints 
CHAPTER I 



An American Islam 

THE history of the Mormon church 
forms one of the strangest and most 
startling chapters in the annals of 
the Nineteenth Century. The French 
philosopher Salverte has said that man is 
credulous because he is naturally sincere. 
Yet it seems almost beyond belief that such 
a crude farrago of superstition, if not 
fraud, as Mormonism could be brought 
forth by the most enlightened age of the 
world, an age in which science has worked 
her greatest marvels and culture has been 
diffused over all lands. Buddha, Krish- 
na, Mithra, Apollonius, and other demi- 
gods who founded miraculous religions, 
belong to the remote past and to distant 
climes. We flatter ourselves that their 
revelations prospered because they came 
long ago and far away. But Mormonism 
arose almost yesterday, amid universities 
and libraries, as if to prove that man is 
the same in all ages — as if to demonstrate 
the truth of what Gregory Nazianzen 



8 MORMON SAINTS 

wrote to St. Jerome: "A little jargon is 
all that is necessary to impose on the 
people. • The less they comprehend, the 
more they admire." 

Almost a century has passed, and the 
followers of Mormon are still among us — 
and while missionary societies are sending 
abroad thousands of men and millions of 
money to bring the heathen unto Christ, a 
terrible canker has attacked the heart of 
Christianity at home. Mormon apostles 
are swarming through the land, sowing 
their doctrine broadcast. Most amazing 
of all is the fact that they are meeting with 
success, and while many orthodox denomi- 
nations complain of stagnation and de- 
cline, the church of the Latter-Day Saints 
is forging steadily ahead, gaining ground 
in fashion marvelous. 

It will be the aim of these pages to in- 
quire into the origin of that church — a 
hierarchy, rather ; to trace the Cagliostro- 
like career of its founder, and its rise un- 
to power despite intelligent opposition and 
shameful persecution; to examine its 
"supernatural revelation" by the higher 
criticism of common sense ; finally, to con- 
sider whether its institutions are antagon- 
istic to those laws upon which rests the 
well-being of the nation and of society — 
and, if they are, to suggest a remedy. 

The purpose ever kept in view will be 



AN AMERICAN ISLAM 9 

to weigh, not blindly to condemn. To 
enumerate the sources drawn upon and the 
authorities consulted would needlessly en- 
cumber the account; the wonder tales of 
Mormon writers and the rabid concoctions 
of their foes have alike been cautiously 
sifted. Nought is set down in malice — 
though the historian expressly reserves 
the right to smile at human folly where 
he finds it. 

The peculiar people who colonized the 
valley of the Great Salt Lake have many 
admirable qualities commending them to 
favor; the impartial historian may not 
shut his eyes to these. Perhaps these 
virtues are more to be feared than their 
vices. For, if the beliefs, doctrines, and 
practices of the Mormons are dangerous to 
society, there is reason for the gravest ap- 
prehension, and need of the most ener- 
getic measures to render them harmless. 
Truly marvelous has been the spread of 
the Mormon faith. Joseph Smith in 1827 
proclaimed his discovery of the golden 
plates whereon was inscribed the Booh of 
Mormon. Three years later the first 
church was organized with six members; 
to-day, after less than a century, the 
Mormon faith numbers nearly half a mil- 
lion adherents. It is doubtful whether 
Christianity had gained that number of 
converts by the end of its first century. 



10 MORMON SAINTS 

There is no parallel to the successes of 
Mormonism except in those of Islam, 
which it resembles in many other respects. 
Like the religion of Mahomet, it claims to 
supplement and supplant Christianity — to 
be a second thought of God, with the im- 
plication that second thoughts are best. 
Like Mahometanism, it has a special reve- 
lation, committed to its founder by an 
angel from heaven. Like Mahometanism, 
it is extremely practical and not at all mys- 
tical: it fills the flesh-pots of the faithful 
and enjoins no strenuous asceticism. 
Like Mahometanism, it believed in the 
missionary potency of the sword. One 
of the earliest writers upon the subject 
styled Joseph Smith the American Maho- 
met — a comparison which in no way vio- 
lates the truth of history, save that the 
camel-driver and prophet of Mecca was 
probably a sincere fanatic, whereas the 
seer of Palmyra was more likely a cun- 
ning impostor. 

This excrescence of Christianity has 
steadily grown at a rate faster "than the 
nation. The advance guard which entered 
Utah in 1847 numbered only 148; to-day 
Utah, excepting Salt Lake City and Ogden, 
is overwhelmingly Mormon, and the 
church to a great extent holds the balance 
of political power in the adjoining states — 
Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Mon- 



AN AMERICAN ISLAM 11 

tana, Arizona, and New Mexico. It rules 
absolutely over a region as large as the 
combined area of New York and Pennsyl- 
vania, and is a potent factor in every part 
of the great West. It sends its elders — ■ 
missionaries in the apostolic sense, with- 
out "purse or scrip" — to Mexico, to the 
republics of Central and South America, 
to the islands of the Pacific, to Australia, 
to India, to the Cape Colony and the 
Transvaal, to Turkey, Russia, Germany, 
Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, even to 
England. They overrun the Southern 
states and the Northwest, and boast that 
they gained over sixty thousand converts 
during one year alone — more than any 
other religious denomination in the United 
States during the same period. The Mor- 
mons outnumber many sects that make a 
great deal more noise. An idea of their 
strength may be gained from the fact that 
they are almost as numerous as the ad- 
herents of the great and respected Episco- 
palian Church. 

Counterfeiting humility when it served 
their purpose, they have never failed to 
display an overweening arrogance when in 
power. When they attained statehood for 
Utah, they paralyzed the arm of Federal 
jurisdiction. Then the meek mask was 
thrown off, and offensive usages sanction- 
ed by the church were again openly prac- 



12 MORMON SAINTS 

ticed and brazenly defended. Judges and 
juries in Utah were under their thumb, 
and even those who were not for them 
dared not pronounce against them, or at 
best connived at grave misdemeanors by 
imposing trifling fines upon Saints that 
happened to get caught. They even went 
to the extent of electing to the United 
States Congress a notorious and self-con- 
fessed violator of the state law against 
polygamy — virtually saying to the nation: 
"What are you going to do about itf" 
And to-day, through Senator Keed Smoot, 
they are influential in all caucuses and 
councils of the powerful Republican fac- 
tion. 

There is a tremendous truth in the 
words which Mark Twain, that philoso- 
pher who put on the mask of a humorist, 
uttered through his Connecticut Yankee in 
King Arthur's Court : "I was afraid of a 
united church; it makes a mighty power, 
the mightiest conceivable, and then when 
it by and by gets into selfish hands, as it 
is always bound to do, it means death to 
human liberty and paralysis to human 
thought," 

There are sects which proclaim insani- 
ties more iniquitous than the tenets of the 
"Saints" — but they lack the peculiar vi- 
tality of Mormonism and hence are com- 
paratively harmless. They have their 



AN AMERICAN ISLAM 13 

day, and are forgotten, but Mormonism is 
spreading both as a religions body and a 
political force. To the elements of danger 
already indicated there is joined the mili- 
tant spirit of the theocracy. It has not 
hesitated at violence and bloodshed to 
maintain itself. Wherever the Mormons 
have gone, their presence has often en- 
gendered civil strife. They form a state 
within the state — they submit to the gov- 
ernment, but do not acquiesce in it. What 
manifestation of implacable hostility — 
never effaced — could be plainer than the 
flags of Salt Lake City flying at half-mast 
on the Fourth of July, the nation's birth- 
day? The country has had several Mor- 
mon wars — and, as one historian put it, 
after the lapse of half a century the prob- 
lem "has not yet yielded to the force of 
logic or the logic of force.' ' 



14 MORMON SAINTS 



CHAPTEE II 



" Joe Smith, Prophet" 

"Ye shall know them by their fruits," 
says Scripture, and adds : " Do men gather 
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" 
Whether we judge Joseph Smith by Mor- 
monism, or that faith by its founder, the 
result is very much the same. But an 
inquiry into the Prophet's antecedents and 
character will be found instructive as a 
commentary upon the gullibility of man- 
kind. There have been many false pro- 
phets, religious quacks, high-priests of 
humbug, from Simon Magus to Teed the 
Koresh. None has gained power over 
his dupes so easily; none has exploited 
their credulity for his own profit with 
greater impudence; none has erected a 
"religion" more transparent than that 
system of lunacy and lechery foisted upon 
his followers by the Scotch- Yankee Mes- 
siah of Mormonism. 

Joe Smith was born December 23, 1805, 
at Sharon, Vermont. The threadbare 
phrase must be reversed in his case — he 
came "of poor but disreputable parents." 
They removed to Palmyra, New York, in 



"JOE SMITH, PROPHET" 16 

1815, Joseph Smith senior having in- 
fringed upon the government monopoly of 
" making money,' ' and escaped punish- 
ment only by turning state's evidence. 
In Palmyra, the pursuits of the family — 
Joe was the fourth of nine children — rang- 
ed from the prosaic peddling of rootbeer 
to fortune-telling and digging for buried 
treasure. Many good people pointed the 
finger of scorn and suspicion at them, 
while chicken-coops and smoke-houses 
were watched with special vigilance as a 
result of nocturnal raids. They were an 
illiterate, shiftless, whiskey-drinking tribe 
— and Joseph was not least among them 
in laziness and other evil propensities. 
But he was a "genus," as his father used 
to say; he could with utmost solemnity 
utter the most palpable untruths, he was 
fertile in schemes of every kind, and was 
an omnivorous reader of the "buckets of 
blood" literature extant in that day. His 
favorite books in his youth were the Life of 
Stephen Burroughs, a religious impostor 
whom he seems to have chosen for a pa- 
tron saint, and the Life of Captain Kidd, 
whose career he could not well emulate, 
being far from the sea, but whose buried 
treasures, dreamed of and diligently dug 
for, may have been the germ of the 
"Golden Bible" discovered in Mormon 
Hill. And we further learn that poetry, 



16 MORMON SAINTS 

as well as biography, had charms for Jo- 
seph, his favorite stanza being — 

"My name was Robert Kidd, 

As I sailed, as I sailed, 
And most wickedly I did, 
God's laws I did forbid, 

As I sailed, as I sailed." 

Blood-and-thunder literature was not as 
plentiful nor as cheap then as it is now, 
or Joe might never have opened the Bible ; 
as it was, he later became quite familiar 
with parts of the Old and New Testaments, 
and the fanciful stories he invented be- 
gan to take on a religious cast, The mor- 
bidly superstitious nature of his mother, 
who believed in dreams and saw visions, 
also must have influenced him greatly. 

With the aid of a curious piece of quartz, 
found while digging a well, Joseph em- 
barked upon fortune-telling. It may be 
proper to add that the well had not been 
dug by him, for he had a deep-seated an- 
tipathy to every sort of undignified exer- 
tion. He preferred more lucrative and 
less arduous avocations, such as the pos- 
session of the magic peek-stone now 
opened to him — pretending to be able by 
its agency to recover lost or stolen prop- 
erty and find hidden pirate hoards. Many 
people paid him money for the exercise of 
his clairvoyant gifts. One easygoing and 



"JOB SMITH, PROPHET" 17 

superstitions farmer furnished a sheep for 
a blood-offering in treasnre-seeking incan- 
tations — which sheep was promptly trans- 
formed into mutton under the auspices of 
the budding prophet's mother. When the 
lost property failed to turn up, or the chest 
of gold did not materialize, Joe had ever 
an ingenious explanation for the failure, 
and nearly always managed to placate the 
wrath of his disappointed dupes. Such 
was the boyhood of Joe Smith at Fayette 
and Manchester, whither his parents had 
removed in 1819. 

A revival broke out, opening up a new 
field for the idle and imaginative young 
scamp, who first became a Methodist pro- 
bationer, but soon backslid and began to 
see visions, like his mother. God the 
Father and God the Son appeared to him 
while he was at prayer in a forest, bidding 
him to ally himself with no church extant, 
since all were in the meshes of error. 
Later an angel clothed in supernal glory 
announced to him that he himself was the 
chosen vessel of God, that his sins were 
blotted out, and that the acceptable year 
of the Lord had come. He was directed 
to go to a certain hill, where he would find 
a book of golden plates, together with the 
instrument to interpret them. Strict in- 
junction was put upon him not to show the 
plates to any one, nor to use them for self- 



18 MORMON SAINTS 

ish gain, under penalty of death. Perhaps 
Smith disregarded this warning later — 
which would plausibly account for his un- 
timely end — though the Mormons have 
never made use of the forcible argument 
that could be based upon such conjecture. 

Smith henceforth received revelation af- 
ter revelation. He found the plates in the 
spot indicated, but not being sufficiently 
sanctified he did not remove them. At last, 
in September, 1827, after three years ' 
growth in holiness, during which he took 
unto himself a wife in spite of her parents ' 
opposition, which the father wished to 
voice with a shotgun, the plates passed 
into Joe's possessioji. Together with them 
he found "two smooth three-cornered dia- 
monds set in glass, which were connected 
with each other in much the same way as 
old-fashioned spectacles." These were 
the Urim and Thummim — the insignia of 
Old Testament seers — to be employed in 
translating the golden tome. A curious 
copper breastplate and a sword also were 
found in the same spot. 

So runs the Mormon version. A sug- 
gestive commentary upon it is furnished 
by the neighbors of the Smith family. One 
of them, named Peter Ingersoll, a close 
friend of Joe's, declared under oath that 
"Smith told him the whole story was a 
hoax ; that he had found no such book ; but 



"JOE SMITH, PROPHET" 19 

that as he had got the d — d fools fixed, he 
was bound to carry out the fun. ' ' 

Smith cajoled Martin Harris, a well-to- 
do farmer, into supporting him while 
translating the plates. Harris, a gullible 
fanatic, had been in turn Quaker and Uni- 
versalist, Baptist and Presbyterian, and 
pretended to have made a trip to the moon. 
Now he became the Prophet's secretary. 
A blanket was hung up in a dark corner 
to shield the golden plates from profane 
eyes; behind this improvised curtain, 
which smacks of the spiritualistic cabinet, 
sat Smith, translating aloud, while Harris 
reduced it to writing. What would have 
been the outcome had Harris been of skep- 
tical nature and torn down the curtain? 
Probably no Mormon problem would ever 
have arisen to vex the nation. But per- 
haps Smith might have met the emergency 
as he did in a similar contretemps. A 
couple of cronies, after vainly urging him 
to show them his wonderful find, were per- 
mitted a glimpse of its shape beneath a 
piece of canvas. One of them, with the 
words, "Egad, I'll see the critter, live or 
die !" whisked off the covering, and a large 
brick was revealed. Smith pretended he 
had played a joke on them, and some po- 
tations from his whiskey-flask again put 
everybody into good humor. 

Smith found another ally, even more 



20 MORMON SAINTS 

congenial and valuable than Martin Har- 
ris, in a stranded schoolmaster, sometime 
a blacksmith, named Oliver Cowdery. 
John the Baptist, appearing in a vision, 
commanded the pair to baptize each other 
by immersion, at the same time consecrat- 
ing them "Priests of the Order of Aaron." 
As soon as the rite had been performed, 
the Holy Ghost came upon them with the 
gift of prophecy. By Cowdery 's aid — 
Smith could not then write legibly — the 
translation of the "Golden Bible" was 
completed, and the pair began to preach 
the new gospel. They gained a few con- 
verts, but were too well known in the com- 
munity to meet with any great measure of 
success. Most of the converts afterward 
backslid ; it is doubtful if any was sincere 
except Martin Harris, a dupe so simple- 
minded that he bought Smith's wedding 
suit for him upon the representation that 
it was needed for missionary work. 

From this time forth the life of Smith 
runs parallel with the history of the Mor- 
mon church. Whether he was the real 
originator, or only the cat's-paw of Sidney 
Bigdon, whose connection with the begin- 
nings of the church will be touched upon 
later, Smith from the first was the ac- 
knowledged head and front of the scheme. 
He possessed in a remarkable degree the 
qualities essential to success in such an 



"JOE SMITH, PROPHET" 21 

undertaking — unscrupulous audacity, un- 
blushing impudence, and the nimbus of 
necromantic power. 

That Joseph Smith was a deliberate 
impostor, as the earlier critics of Mor- 
monism asserted, is not now believed by 
students of psychology. The dupe of his 
own imagination, perhaps an epileptic like 
Paul and Mahomet, he was a victim of the 
religious crazes that swept the New York 
lake region. Having received this im- 
pulse and acquired this propensity, he 
found it profitable and easy to expand his 
first revelations into systematic deception 
— like those spiritualistic mediums who 
supplement their " phenomena' ' with 
tricks. Beginning as a mystic with hal- 
lucinations, Joe Smith developed into a 
professional high-priest of humbug. 

Smith's pretended revelations certainly 
appeared to be the crudest and most pal- 
pable sort of imposture, and it is amazing 
that they were swallowed by his dupes. 
Soon after the Booh of Mormon was print- 
ed, and when the printer was clamoring 
for his money, Smith had a revelation com- 
manding Martin Harris to foot the bill: 
M I command thee that thou shalt not covet 
thine own property, but impart it freely 
to the printing of the Booh of Mormon, 
which contains the truth and the word of 
God. Pay the debt thou has contracted 



22 MORMON SAINTS 

with the printer/ ' No ambiguity about 
that oracle! Another revelation com- 
manded the church to build a house for 
Smith. Still another ordered that he "be 
provided with food and raiment, and what- 
soever things he needeth to accomplish the 
work wherewith I have commanded him. ' ' 
The irreverent may note the unconvention- 
ally of the grammar, which the giant spec- 
tacles of the Urim and Thummim seeming- 
ly were powerless to overcome. 

Despite the defects of his education and 
his moral delinquencies, Joseph Smith was 
one of the most remarkable men of his 
time. His portrait, long in the possession 
of Brigham Young, shows him to have had 
features regular and not unintelligent. 
Physically he was tall and well-propor- 
tioned, with light hair, blue eyes, and cal- 
low face. He was mild and suave in 
manner, yet always carried his measures 
— a born leader of men. He could endure 
privation and persecution unflinchingly to 
gain his ends ; yet he was fond of ease and 
luxury, and from his sensuous nature 
doubtless proceeded the revelation enjoin- 
ing polygamy upon the church — a feature 
of its creed that has roused more hostility 
than all others. In this, also, he resembled 
Mahomet, who had a special revelation 
(Sura 33 of the Koran) when he wished to 



"JOE SMITH, PROPHET" 23 

marry the wife of his adopted son Zaid, 
a thing abhorrent to the Arabs . 

Such was the man who founded a great 
religion upon flimsy mummeries, and es- 
tablished it despite ridicule and malignant 
opposition; the man who was tarred and 
feathered in Ohio, driven from Missouri 
by the militia, jailed and lynched in Illi- 
nois; the man who built three flourishing 
cities, and had the effrontery to run for 
the presidency of the United States; the 
man whose spirit, though like Moses he 
never trod the promised land, dominates 
the state of Utah to-day and is one of the 
mightiest factors in the ultramontane 
region of the great West. 



24 MORMON SAINTS 



CHAPTER III 



The Book of Mormon 

It will be well, before pursuing further 
the fortunes of the infant church, to pause 
and look into the supposedly sacred vol- 
ume from which it sprang. The Mormons 
derive their name from this book, which 
they believe to have been written in the 
fourth century by the Hebrew-American 
hero-chief Mormon. It has been trans- 
lated into German, French, Spanish, 
Italian, Swedish, Danish, Welsh, Ha- 
waiian, and a dozen other languages, and 
scattered broadcast over the world by 
Mormon missionaries. The volume is a 
queer hash — just such a work as might 
have been expected of Joseph Smith — a 
mixture of Holy Writ with blood-and- 
thunder fiction. Its plot is as follows : 

After the confusion of tongues at the 
building of the tower of Babel, God scat- 
tered the various tribes of mankind over 
the face of the earth. Several families, 
descendants of Jared, came to America, 
where they increased and multiplied. At 
first they prospered, living righteously; 
but later wickedness began to flourish 
among them, until, about 600 b. c, they 



THE BOOK OP MORMON 25 

were punished for their transgressions by 
total annihilation. Their history was 
written and the record hidden away by 
their great prophet Ether. Let not the 
irreverent therefore deem it " light as 
air," nor suggest its affinity to laughing 
gas. 

Now about this time, while Zedekiah sat 
on the throne of Judah, Lehi, a holy man 
of the tribe of Joseph, divinely warned 
of Jerusalem's impending destruction, 
was by God's hand led to America. Lehi 
landed on the coast of Chile, and his de- 
scendants, spreading northward, re- 
peopled the land, and found records of 
the extinct Jaredites. Both of the races 
now dwelling on the continent, the sons of 
Nephi and the sons of Laman, waxed pros- 
perous and mighty like their predecessors. 
But the Lamanites lapsed into barbarism, 
while the Nephites, specially favored by 
the Lord, attained high civilization. They 
lived according to the law of Moses, which 
they had brought across the sea,, and were 
ruled by judges, kings, and prophets, even 
as Israel. Visions and angels ' visits were 
vouchsafed to their patriarchs and holy 
men, and in the fullness of time, after his 
death on the cross and his ascension, 
Christ came dowTi to visit America and 
organized the church there as he had in 
Judea. 



26 MORMON SAINTS 

Three or four centuries after Christ, the 
Nephites, lapsing into sin, were delivered 
into the hand of the savage Lamanites, 
progenitors of the American Indians. The 
great Nephite hero-prophet Mormon had 
been commanded to inscribe the records of 
his nation upon golden tables, which he 
committed to his son Moroni, who hid 
them in the hill Cumorah when the Laman- 
ites destroyed his people, slaying 230,000 
in a great battle. The Ilrim and Thum- 
mim were put with the tables, so that the 
finder might be able to interpret the writ- 
ings. In due time these plates were dis- 
covered by Joseph Smith. 

Such is the story of the Booh of Mor- 
mon. The plates of fine gold which Smith 
professed to have found, guided by an 
angel, have aroused much incredulous 
criticism. They were not shown to any 
one until two years after Smith first an- 
nounced their discovery. Even then they 
were displayed only to eleven persons; 
the remainder of the world was not holy 
enough to be permitted a glance at these 
writings in "Reformed Egyptian," a 
language hitherto unknown to philology. 
To make matters worse, the book with the 
other paraphernalia was returned to the 
angel after Smith had done with them, 
which of course disposes of any hope that 
future generations of linguists may un- 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 27 

ravel its cabalistic runes into a grammar 
and a lexicon. 

The breastplate, which only Smith's 
mother ever saw, and a sword, never 
shown to any one — what prizes these for 
a museum! It seems to have been the ori- 
ginal intention to exhibit the plates, after 
the translation was completed, charging 
twenty-five cents admission; but this plan 
was never carried into execution. Either 
the plates were mythical, or exposure was 
feared. But what an impetus it would 
have given the faith if the original plates 
could have been displayed in the sanctu- 
ary of its several Zions, or could have been 
sent forth to confound the learning of the 
schools! Or if the volume, surely 24 
carats fine, had been melted down to pay 
for printing the first edition of the ' ' trans- 
lation," on the title-page of which, it may 
be interesting to remember, Smith pro- 
claimed himself the "author and proprie- 
tor." The plates were said to be eight 
inches long and seven in width, about the 
thickness of tin ; three gold rings fastened 
these plates together into a volume six 
inches thick and weighing about sixty 
pounds. The United States mint would 
have returned coin enough to save Mar- 
tin Harris from mortgaging his farm, 
with something over to pay the debts the 



28 MORMON SAINTS 

Smiths left behind them when they mi- 
grated from Palmyra to Kirtland, Ohio. 

The eleven persons whose testimony 
that they saw the original plates is pre- 
fixed to the later editions of the Book of 
Mormon can hardly be called disinterested 
witnesses. The first three are Oliver 
Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin 
Harris. Cowdery and Harris were 
Smith's confederates in the labor of trans- 
lation; Harris was also financially inter- 
ested to a considerable sum; while David 
Whitmer belonged to a family "noted for 
credulity and a belief in witches,' ' who of- 
fered Smith an asylum in their home soon 
after the story of the Golden Bible was 
bruited about. Besides, the testimony of 
these three witnesses contains so many 
things of which they can not have been 
sure, that we may well doubt their reli- 
ability as to those points upon which they 
should have been sure. Harris , when 
questioned closely, used to explain that he 
had seen the plates "with his spiritual 
eye," and we may well believe that he saw 
them through Smith's spiritual spectacles, 
for it seems almost certain that the whole 
of the testimony was drawn up by Smith 
himself. 

Cowdery and Whitmer were subsequent- 
ly expelled from the church — called 
"murderers at heart" by Smith, and 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 



29 



" counterfeiters, thieves, liars, blacklegs of 
the deepest dye," by Sidney Bigdon. 
Harris also was expelled, having mu- 
tinied at the shabby treatment Smith ac- 
corded him after his money was gone, but 
he never recanted his belief in Mormon- 
ism. 

Of the eight other witnesses, five were 
relatives of Whitmer's and the remaining 
three were Smith's father and two bro- 
thers. So it appears that this testimony, 
taken at its full value, is pretty much a 
family affair. A simple diagram will 
make this plain: 

Joseph Smith, the Prophet 



Bg'ffSaS. 

I OQ ff ST m -H -? 



fcj CTQ 



CD g 



p 



p 

I 



Sbb^b i 

■1 CD CD J* (D tt 



<-h CD 

•1 ^ 



o 
o 

CD 



• B B 



Martin Harris was a practical man as 
well as a man of faith, and hoped to reap 
a golden reward on earth as well as oc- 
cupy a front pew in the New Jerusalem. 
Impelled by this practical vein in his char- 
acter, and probably instigated by his 



30 MORMON SAINTS 

Quaker wife, who treated the whole matter 
as "craziness," he insisted upon being 
given a copy of the writing, which he took 
to New York and showed to various schol- 
ars, asking their opinion. The Mormons 
assert that the famous Prof. Charles An- 
thon declared the characters to be Egyp- 
tian, Chaldean, Assyrian, and Arabic. 
Anthon in a letter denied having given 
any such ridiculous opinion, but suspected 
that an attempt was being made to vic- 
timize Harris, and accordingly warned 
him. But Harris, it is supposed, was only 
confirmed in his faith by any warning. 
"God hath chosen the foolish things of the 
world to confound the wise," was his fa- 
vorite axiom. 

Harris's wife burned a part of the man- 
uscript secretly, thinking to put an end to 
the scheme. This brought about a cool- 
ness between Harris and Smith, the Pro- 
phet suspecting the farmer of having con- 
nived at the loss of the precious pages. 
Smith had a convenient revelation order- 
ing him not to retranslate the lost portion, 
lest, if the stolen copy should be found and 
differed from the new version, skeptics 
might scoff at God's word. 

Although Harris declared that "Bro- 
ther Joseph drank too much liquor while 
translating the Book of Mormon," the 
translation was finally completed. The 



THE BOOK OP MORMON 31 

work was printed and given to the world 
in 1830, Harris mortgaging his farm for 
$3,000 to make this possible. It was a 
book of 588 octavo pages, and was to be 
sold at the specially revealed price of 
$1.25. Harris was to have the exclusive 
selling rights; but he proved a failure as 
a colporteur, and the books were finally 
sold, traded, or disposed of in any way 
that would redound to the greater af- 
fluence and comfort of the Smith family. 

The meaning of the word " Mormon," 
which is Greek for "bugaboo," has been 
explained by Smith with a happier ety- 
mology. "Mon" in Egyptian means 
"good," and "mor" is a contraction of 
"more;" hence "Mormon" means "more 
good" or "better." Such hybrid deriva- 
tions being contrary to the best usage, it 
might be suggested that "mon" be treated 
as a contraction of "money," and that the 
full meaning is "more money." 

Part of the "Golden Bible" was sealed, 
so that it could neither be opened nor read. 
The writing was in a " small unknown 
character;" the facsimiles of it shown 
rather resemble the hieroglyphics execut- 
ed by a very small boy who has surrepti- 
tiously secured his father's pen. There 
are Arabic numerals, dots and dashes, cir- 
cles and squares, Roman letters at all an- 
gles and upside down, with queer curly- 



32 MORMON SAINTS 

cues that look like a clumsy forgery of 
a laundry-check. 

The original inss. of the new Bible had 
no marks of punctuation and no capital 
letters, nor were there any paragraphs. 
The Urim and Thummim did not pay 
any attention to typographical details. 
After handling a few pages of the "copy," 
the printer who got out the first edition 
had found that his reputation would be 
forever lost if he printed the book "as it 
was written." Finally, after much expos- 
tulation , Smith modified the command- 
ment of the Lord forbidding any changes, 
and gave the printer limited liberty as to 
nonessentials. Thus it appears that the 
new-fledged Prophet was already learned 
in the wisdom of the Higher Critics. Not- 
withstanding the printer's corrections, 
the first edition of the "inspired" vol- 
ume was full of errors in spelling and 
grammar, capitalizing and punctuation — 
to say nothing of anachronisms, gross his- 
torical blunders, glaring absurdities, and 
stilted imitations of scriptural phraseol- 
ogy — six hundred pages of dull drivel. 

Those hero-prophets of prehistoric 
America were wondrously endowed, as 
they could quote from Hamlet and the 
King James Bible a thousand years be- 
fore Shakespeare and King James were 
born — plain proof of inspiration! But 



THE BOOK OF MORMON 33 

the work adds nothing to human know- 
ledge except the names of two animals, 
"cureloms and cumoms," hitherto un- 
known to Zoology. Along with Leviathan 
and Behemoth, these creatures would 
prove drawing-cards for any menagerie. 
Some inspired artist should paint these 
beasts and resolve all doubts about them. 
Has the curelom wings or a prehensile 
tail? Is the cumom carnivorous or does 
it feed upon nuts? 

But what of the true origin of this 
sacred book? One widely accepted theory 
identifies it with an archeological romance, 
The Manuscript Found, written by the 
Rev. Solomon Spaulding about 1809. 
Spaulding believed the American conti- 
nent to have been colonized by the ancient 
Israelites, and that the Indians are their 
descendants. Upon this theory — which 
belongs in the same category as Shake- 
speare-Bacon ciphers and Great Pyramid 
inheritances — the good dominie based a 
fabulous history of the mound-builders. 
He gave the manuscript to a Pittsburgh 
bookseller named Patterson. Spaulding 
died before an agreement as to terms of 
publication could be reached, and the 
manuscript remained in Patterson's pos- 
session. 

Now another character appears upon 
the stage of this religious melodrama. It 



34 MORMON SAINTS 

is Sidney Rigdon, who afterward became 
the great apostle of Mormonism. Rig- 
don was a sort of theological free lance — 
an eloquent speaker and a man of much 
executive ability, but given to erratic no- 
tions. He drifted from the Baptist fold 
into the Disciple, and here, becoming dis- 
gruntled at real or fancied slights put up- 
on him by Alexander Campbell, he prob- 
ably conceived the idea of starting a re- 
ligion of his own. It is known that he 
worked at the printer's case in his young- 
er days, and it seems that he was in Pat- 
terson's employ or loafed about the place, 
and it is not unlikely that in some way or 
other he got hold of the Spaulding manu- 
script. 

Learning through the papers of Smith's 
necromantic and clairvoyant perform- 
ances, and of his "magic peek-stone," 
Rigdon saw in him a perhaps valuable 
ally. Perhaps they met on one of Rig- 
don's tours as a Campbellite evangelist; 
perhaps the tin-peddling theologian, Par- 
ley Pratt, who will play a great role in 
the future of the new religion, was the go- 
between. An understanding was reached 
in some way, and the result was that 
Spaulding 's tale, greatly padded and al- 
tered to suit the purposes of the schemers, 
in due time made its appearance as the 
Book of Mormon. 



THE BOOK OP MORMON 35 

Rigdon was often away from home for 
weeks while the translation was going on, 
and a " mysterious stranger" made fre- 
quent visits to the Smith homestead dur- 
ing the same time. All this, with the ad- 
ditional fact that Eigdon in Ohio spoke of 
the new revelation before it was made pub- 
lic, forms a fairly complete chain of cir- 
cumstantial evidence. A number of per- 
sons, including the widow, brother, busi- 
ness partner, and neighbors of Spaulding, 
also identified his romance as the ground- 
work of the Book of Mormon — the same 
characters, the same plot, the same pecu- 
liar diction and style. Spaulding 's origi- 
nal manuscript was reported to have been 
found at Honolulu in 1885, and this ms. is 
at present in the library of Oberlin Col- 
lege, but it is generally believed to be a 
forgery. 

Such, according to the most plausible 
theory, was the genesis of that sacred vol- 
ume, holding which in one hand and the 
Bible in the other, and suddenly clapping 
them together — an effective oratorical 
trick — Sidney Rigdon in his Mormon ser- 
mons declared that the two books were 
each incomplete without the other. 

The Spaulding-Rigdon theory of the 
Book of Mormon may be wrong — indeed, 
it is almost superfluous. The book con- 
tains nothing which Joseph Smith might 



36 MORMON SAINTS 

not have evolved. It is a religious dime- 
novel written in the style of Kings and 
Chronicles, interminable, prosaic, platitu- 
dinous, ungrammatical. It will never be 
attacked by any Higher Criticism : it is be- 
neath all criticism. Yet it is believed im- 
plicitly by hundreds of thousands. Very 
true are the words of the great historian 
Edward Gibbon: "The practice of super- 
stition is so congenial to the multitude 
that, if they are forcibly awakened, they 
still regret the loss of their pleasing 
vision.*** So urgent on the vulgar is the 
necessity of believing, that the fall of any 
system of mythology will most probably 
be succeeded by the introduction of some 
other mode of super stition." Very true 
— and yet how tragical ! 



BIRTH OP A NEW RELIGION 37 



CHAPTER IV 



The Birth of a New Eeligion 

It was a time of spiritual unrest. 
Mushroom sects sprang up over night; 
epidemic delusions swept across the land, 
like the flagellant and dancing manias of 
the Middle Ages. The appearance of a 
comet would throw whole communities in- 
to a frenzy of preparation for the day of 
wrath. To this period belong the vaga- 
ries of the Millerites, and the meteoric 
career of Dylks, the Leatherwood Mes- 
siah; this period also marked the rise of 
the Disciples, the Winebrennerians, the 
Free- Will Baptists. Religious excitement 
everywhere blazed up in remarkable re- 
vivals, which were often attended by pe- 
culiar physical and psychical phenomena 
— shouting, grimacing, writhing, as in con- 
vulsions. The "Barkers" would gather 
around a tree, snarling and yapping like 
dogs, which they called "treeing the 
devil ; ' ' camp-meetings would be convulsed 
with "holy laughter" that could be heard 
a long distance off for hours and days. It 
was an age of religious epidemics. 

The cause of this unsettled state of the 
popular mind, and of the consequent ready 



38 MORMON SAINTS 

responsiveness to religions freaks and 
frauds, is not hard to find. The labors 
and privations of pioneer life were rapidly 
being superseded by the comfort and se- 
curity of established communities, while 
education had not yet clarified the seeth- 
ing brains. In the fallow soil of leisure 
and naive ignorance Mormonism quickly 
took root, like a score of other religious 
crazes of the day, which had not its pecu- 
liar elements of vitality and so perished. 

The church was definitely organized at 
Fayette, New York, in 1830, on April sixth. 
Why not five days sooner, may be asked, 
to conserve the eternal fitness of things? 
The six original members were Joseph 
Smith, senior, Hyrum Smith, Joseph 
Smith, junior, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cow- 
dery, and Joseph Knight. At first they 
called themselves the "Church of Christ/' 
soon, however, they styled it the ' ' Church 
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" — 
now usually abridged to "Latter-Day 
Saints." 

The first conference of the new-fledged 
church was held the same year, in the be- 
ginning of June, with thirty members pre- 
sent. Missionaries were sent out, and an 
evangelistic campaign inaugurated. Elder 
Oliver Cowdery preached the first sermon ; 
Parley Pratt, already mentioned, whose 
time was divided between peddling tin- 



BIRTH OF A NEW RELIGION 39 

ware and proclaiming the gospel^ also en- 
tered the apostolate; Martin Harris har- 
angued crowds at street corners and in 
taverns. Sidney Kigdon soon threw off 
his mask, and embraced the new faith. He 
had been gradually preparing his congre- 
gation at Kirtland, Ohio, for the change; 
now, at the start, he made a melodramatic 
show of opposition, to render his conver- 
sion all the more impressive. He went 
through a vehement public debate with 
Pratt, yielding inch by inch, and at last 
surrendered, professing to have received 
the Spirit's witness to the truth of the new 
revelation. The trump of the latter-day 
gospel was sounded with might and main; 
conversions came thick and fast — except 
around Palmyra, where the Prophet and 
his acolytes were too well known. 

Of course, the " world " now began to 
afflict the Saints. Joseph was arrested, 
charges of fraud being brought against 
him. Though acquitted by the district 
court, he deemed it prudent to shake the 
dust of the community from his feet, es- 
pecially as threats and attempts of vio- 
lence were several times made. In 1831 
he and his followers removed to Kirtland, 
where Eigdon already had done effective 
missionary work. 

There the church grew, despite vehem- 
ent opposition. The ignorant and super- 



40 MORMON SAINTS 

stitious were frightened into the fold by 
prophecies such as one by Martin Harris, 
that within fifteen years Christ would ap- 
pear and everybody who had not accepted 
Mormonism would be damned. Others 
were attracted by the fascination which 
the strange and marvelous ever exercises 
over many minds; not a few were influ- 
enced by motives of cupidity and a desire 
for place and power. Such converts were 
not susceptible to counteractives like the 
scholarly Alexander Campbell's expose of 
the Booh of Mormon. Who knows if in 
centuries to come Campbell's writings 
may not be lost like those of Celsus, who 
criticised early Christianity on the ground 
that "weavers, tailors, fullers, and the 
most illiterate and rustic fellows" were 
preaching this gospel and exalting the 
peculiar glory of ignorance? It would 
be no greater marvel than the success of 
the illiterate and rustic fellows preaching 
Mormonism among people of their own 
stamp. Still, it would be misleading to 
assume that all the Mormon converts of 
that day, or of more recent time, were 
ignorant and superstitious. Among them 
were men of piety and learning; many 
were descended from the stern old Puri- 
tan stock of New England. Such was 
Lorenzo Snow — whose sister Eliza later 
became one of Smith's wives — an accom- 



BIRTH OF A NEW RELIGION 41 

plished Hebrew scholar and a graduate of 
Presbyterian Oberlin; such was Brigham 
Young, the Joshua of Mormonism, whose 
grandfather was a New England Metho- 
dist, and whose father fought in the Revo- 
lutionary war. Lorin Farr, the first 
mayor of Ogden, came of old New Hamp- 
shire stock; Anson Call's grandfather 
fought at Bunker Hill and under Wash- 
ington; Abram Hatch also boasted of a 
Revolutionary ancestry; Franklin D. Rich- 
ards was a native of Massachusetts; 
Francis M. Lyman's grandfather was a 
cousin of Lyman Beecher — Henry Ward 
Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe were 
his second cousins. The list might be ex- 
tended greatly ; but these names will suf- 
fice to show that not merely the rabble was 
captivated by the strange and novel doc- 
trine. 

A splendid temple was built at Kirtland, 
representing a value of forty thousand 
dollars. Apostles were sent forth to con- 
vert the Indian tribes, the "Lamanites," 
to whom Smith professed to be specially 
sent. A new version of the Bible was 
also begun with the aid of the Urim and 
Thummim. Ere long, however, it became 
evident to Smith that his plans could not 
be carried out to the full in the more set- 
tled states. In obedience to a revelation 
— he now had revelations as regularly as 



42 MORMON SAINTS 

his meals — another colony was founded in 
Missouri, where the foundations of "the 
glorious city of the New Jerusalem " were 
laid. The settlement prospered, for the 
Mormons spread its fame far and wide 
with an energy and eloquence that a town- 
boomer of later days might have envied. 
"The streets would be paved with gold. 
The ten lost tribes of Israel had been dis- 
covered in the vicinity of the North Pole, 
where they had for ages been secluded 
by immense barriers of ice, and had be- 
come vastly rich; the ice in a few years 
was to be melted away, when these tribes, 
with Saint John at their head, would be 
seen making their appearance in the new 
city, loaded with immense quantities of 
gold and silver. ' ' 

Communism, with its alluring dream of 
fraternity and its promise of assured sub- 
sistence, was another factor that led many 
to follow the apostles of Mormonism. It 
was the time when the Shakers and the 
Owenites. the Brook Farmers and the 
Harmonists, formed their communities, 
most of them upon a religious basis. 
These doctrinaires could point to the ex- 
ample of the early Christians, who had all 
things in common — and in a time of eco- 
nomic stress and emotional fervor such 
teachings found many eager listeners to 
accept them. As the Mormons increased 



BIRTH OF A NEW RELIGION 43 

their worldly goods, however, their early 
communistic notions died out, leaving a 
very effective tithing system as their sur- 
vival in Mormon polity. 

Upon the return from the first recon- 
noitering expedition into Missouri, at- 
tended as it was by such disagreeable ex- 
periences as a ducking in the river and the 
necessity of pawning their trunks to get 
home, Smith and Rigdon set to work to 
secure funds for building the new Zion. 
They openecl a general store at Hiram 
near Kirtland, but were tarred and feath- 
ered by a mob. They started a "wild- 
cat" bank at Kirtland, and flooded the 
region with Mormon money. Here the 
trust principle was first enunciated, a "di- 
vine revelation" declaring that this bank 
"would swallow up all other banks." 
They also started a paper, The Evening 
and Morning Star, which soon ceased to 
twinkle. 

As the household of the faithful increas- 
ed, Smith and his adjutants saw the nec- 
essity of adopting some fixed church 
polity. So they compiled the Booh of 
Doctrine and Covenants, and organized 
the "Council" of twelve high-priests and 
three presidents. Then a quorum of 
"Twelve Apostles" was constituted. The 
picturesque and poetic spirit pervading 
the church at that early day, which must 



44 MORMON SAINTS 

have thrown a glamour over all its claims 
in the eyes of simple-minded and pious 
folk, spread its wings in the sobriquets be- 
stowed upon those " apostles/ ' Brigham 
Young was the Lion of the Lord; Parley 
Pratt, the Archer of Paradise; Orson 
Hyde, the Olive-Branch of Israel; Wil- 
lard Richards, the Keeper of the Rolls; 
John Taylor, the Champion of Right; 
William Smith, the Patriarchal Jacob's 
Staff; Wilford Woodruff, the Banner of 
the Gospel; George A. Smith, the Entab- 
lature of Truth; Orson Pratt, the Gauge 
of Philosophy; John E. Page, the Sun- 
Dial ; Lyman Wright, the Wild Ram of the 
Mountains. 

The collapse of the Kirtland community 
came with the financial panic of 1837. The 
bank that was to swallow all other banks 
had flooded the Western Reserve with 
worthless scrip. An action for unlawful 
banking was brought against Rigdon and 
Smith; other troubles began to multiply. 
The temple had already been mortgaged — 
not by the church, but by Smith, Rigdon, 
et ah When the bank closed its doors, 
Mormonism pulled up stakes, and the he- 
gira to the Missouri Zion began^ culminat- 
ing in the Prophet's inglorious midnight 
flight, which he justified by the saying of 
Jesus : " When they persecute you in one 
city, flee ye to another." 



BIRTH OF A NEW RELIGION 45 

Meanwhile the Missouri colony, " where 
Christ would shortly reign in person/ ' 
had grown to about 1,500 souls and was 
progressing finely; but some practices of 
the Saints brought upon them the odium 
of their neighbors. Resolutions were 
passed ordering all Mormons to leave the 
state, forbidding any others to enter it, 
and closing with this delicious morsel of 
irony: "That those who fail to comply 
with these requisitions, be referred to 
those of their brethren who have the gifts 
of divination and of unknown tongues, to 
inform them of the lot that awaits them." 
Joseph, appealed to as Prophet, preached 
resistance and predicted victory; so a 
Mormon army, two hundred and five men 
strong, had set out from Kirtland to smite 
the Gentiles. Their banner was milky 
white, with the word "Peace" printed up- 
on it in blood-red characters. But when 
they arrived in Missouri, and saw the Gen- 
tile host, instead of "possessing the land" 
they possessed themselves in patience, and 
decided to take the inscription of the ban- 
ner literally as their motto. 

When Smith arrived in Missouri, Far 
West was the nucleus of the Mormon col- 
ony there. A new temple was projected, 
"upon the very spot where the Garden of 
Eden had once been." But trouble was 
brewing. Cowdery and Harris were ex- 



46 MORMON SAINTS 

communicated; Thomas B. Marsh, the 
president of the Apostles, apostatized and 
charged his late brethren with many mis- 
deeds, among them counterfeiting, cattle- 
thieving, immoral practices, and treason 
against the state. The people of Missouri 
rose; civil war was rife; the militia had 
to be called out. The end of the trouble 
was that the Mormons again had to cross 
the Father of Waters. As a Mormon 
hymn phrases it — a genuine Mormon 
hymn, for all its Gilbertian comic-opera 
flavor — 

"Missouri, 
Like a whirlwind in its fury, 
And without a judge or jury, 
Drove the Saints and spilled their blood." 



NAUVOO THE BEAUTIFUL 47 



CHAPTER V 



Nauvoo the Beautiful 

In the spring of 1839 the Mormons, now 
more sinned against than sinning, crossed 
over into Illinois, and there, about fifty 
miles above Quincy, on a rolling plain in 
a curve of the majestic stream, founded 
Nauvoo the Beautiful. Both the name of 
the new city and its significance were re- 
vealed to Smith, w T ho ruled over it as pro- 
phet, priest, and king. Soon the desert 
blossomed like the rose, and the erection 
of another pretentious temple was begun, 
a limestone of marmorean beauty and dur- 
ability being used in the building. From 
near and far the faithful flocked to the 
new settlement; many converts w^ere at- 
tracted through sympathy aroused by the 
Missouri persecutions; and ere long Nau- 
voo had a population of ten thousand 
souls. The city was well governed. 
Saloons and drunkenness were unknown. 
The Mormon virtues of industry and 
thrift were abundantly in evidence. The 
idle were "whittled" out of town — sur- 
rounded by a committee of citizens, who 
whittled their sticks at them until they 
left— a curious Yankee mode of ostracism ! 



48 MORMON SAINTS 

As the number of Mormons grew, Smith 
began to dabble in politics. He con- 
trolled the vote of Nauvoo and the county 
almost absolutely; in one election only six 
votes were cast in opposition to his dictum. 
This power he used to obtain for Nauvoo 
a charter giving the church almost unlimit- 
ed rights and privileges. The Prophet 
was elected Mayor. The Nauvoo Legion 
was formed, a fine body of soldiery which 
eventually grew to four thousand men — 
a Mormon army in the guise of state mil- 
itia, with General Smith as commander-in- 
chief. The Nauvoo University was insti- 
tuted next. A fine hotel was built, in 
obedience to a special revelation, in which 
"my servant Joseph" was remembered as 
always, and a suite of rooms ordered to be 
set apart for him and his forever. Im- 
agine a revelation from heaven decreeing 
the building of a hotel, and giving minute 
architectural details ! Mormon apolo- 
gists, of course, point to the tabernacle as 
a precedent — for Mormon apologists are 
quite resourceful. 

The year 1844 saw Mormonism strongly 
intrenched in Illinois, with Smith at the 
zenith of his glory and power. He oc- 
cupied a place and wielded an influence 
far beyond anything his own high-fantas- 
tic imagination had ever painted. His 
wealth was estimated at a million dollars; 



NAUVOO THE BEAUTIFUL 41> 

he was Pontifex Maximus of a great and 
growing church, absolute ruler over tem- 
poral and spiritual things; hundreds of 
missionaries proclaimed his wisdom and 
holiness in every quarter of the globe. By 
his enemies he was envied and feared; by 
the politicians of both great parties cod- 
dled and courted. No wonder his vault- 
ing ambition o'erleaped itself! 

Clouds began to gather on the horizon. 
A number of his henchmen, notably John 
C. Bennett, were alienated, and went 
forth breathing calumnies against the 
church, calling Nauvoo a modern Sodom 
and Smith a moral leper. Some of their 
charges may have been too well founded, 
for it is almost certain that the revelation 
commanding polygamy had now been de- 
livered, and that "spiritual wifehood' ' 
was flourishing. At the last dress parade 
of the Nauvoo Legion, ten of Smith's " ce- 
lestial wives' ' took part, mounted on milk- 
white chargers and arrayed in full uni- 
form. Such things could not but rouse 
bad blood. With all respect due to Mor- 
mon virtues, the people of Illinois were 
not ready, any more than those of Mis- 
souri, to brook Mormon vices . 

It seems that among the failings of the 
early Saints was a fondness for their 
neighbors' goods. Elders had found reve- 
lation a very convenient path to prosper- 



50 MORMON SAINTS 

ity; a believer in possession of a gold 
watch or a suit of clothes could ofttimes 
be persuaded to turn them over in obedi- 
ence to divine injunction, but sometimes 
complained because the revelations never 
told the holy men to share their gold 
watches or new suits with any one else. 
Still more objectionable was the literal ac- 
ceptance of the words: "Behold, it is not 
said at any time that the Lord should not 
take when he pleased, and pay as seemeth 
him good ; wherefore as ye are agents, and 
ye are on the Lord's errand," etc. — a reve- 
lation given in Missouri in 1831 to miti- 
gate the rigors of the Eighth Command- 
ment. 

"Milking the Gentiles" — a cant Mor- 
mon phrase of obvious meaning — was 
practiced till the Gentiles were incensed 
to fury. But Mormons controlled the 
courts round about Nauvoo, and could not 
be convicted of any crime, however strong 
the evidence. 

To fan opposition into active hate need- 
ed only some such incident as occurred in 
1843. An attempt was made upon the 
life of Gov. L. W. Boggs, of Missouri; a 
Mormon was the would-be assassin, and 
Smith was charged with having instigated 
the deed. A requisition was issued for 
the Prophet and his alleged tool, but a writ 
of habeas corpus defeated this move. The 



NAUVOO THE BEAUTIFUL 51 

case was finally tried in the Nauvoo court, 
under the city's liberal and comprehensive 
charter, and the two prisoners were tri- 
umphantly acquitted. 

The ill-feeling was intensified when 
Smith announced himself as a candidate 
for the Presidency in 1844 — an act that 
brought ridicule upon him and the church. 
His address to the voters was a ludicrous 
hodge-podge of politics and religion ; from 
which, however, he may be regarded as the 
father of expansion, as he advocated the 
annexation of both Canada and Mexico. 

With each day the arrogance of the 
Mormons and the rage of their enemies 
increased. An anti-Mormon paper was 
started right in Nauvoo, but a decree of 
the city council confiscated and destroyed 
the printing outfit. Attempts to arrest 
Smith came to naught, as he stood on the 
impregnable rock of the Nauvoo charter. 
At last, when a popular uprising against 
the city was threatened, Smith surren- 
dered, and was lodged in the jail at Car- 
thage. On June 27, 1844, a fanatical mob 
attacked the prison. Unlike Jesus of 
Nazareth, who rebuked Peter for using his 
sword, the Mormon Prophet had two six- 
shooters, and brought down four of his as- 
sailants. After a hot battle, both Joseph 
and his brother Hyrum were shot and 
killed — the former as he leaped from the 



52 MORMON SAINTS 

window attempting to escape. "0 Lord, 
my God I" were his last words. 

Thus the long comedy closed with a dark 
and tragic denouement. The "irrepres- 
sible conflict" had begun. The Saints 
saw the futility of resistance, but chose to 
exile themselves rather than yield. The 
temple, which was to have cost a million 
dollars, was hurriedly completed, because 
Smith had prophesied it should be ; but 
the day after its dedication it was dis- 
mantled and the exodus began. The 
charter of Nauvoo was revoked by the leg- 
islature; the city was besieged and bom- 
barded by a mob ; the remnant of the Pro- 
phet 's followers was driven forth. At 
Council Bluffs, Iowa, they caught up with 
the advance-guard, and plodded on toward 
the setting sun. 

Beyond the borders of civilization, the 
exiles hoped to build an empire of their 
own, untrammeled by conventional moral- 
ity and the envy of the orthodox denomina- 
tions. They would claim the West "for 
their inheritance." Smith's tragic end 
really gave Mormonism a greater impetus 
than anything else could have done. Per- 
secution always furthers the cause it at- 
tacks; it kindles sympathy in fair-minded 
men, stubborn resistance in the martyrs 
and their followers. 



TO THE PROMISED LAND 53 



CHAPTER VI 



To the Promised Land 

The blood of the Smiths, in the soil of 
Utah, then a part of Mexico, became the 
prolific seed of a mighty church . 

Upper California, as Utah was then 
called, had already been looked toward as 
an ultimate haven in Smith's day. The 
Saints, overwhelmed with grief at their 
Prophet's martyrdom, were ready to de- 
part from the land of oppression. But 
a city can not be moved in a day. The 
people of Illinois disgraced themselves as 
had those of Missouri, and the hapless 
remnant of the Mormons was driven 
forth in the middle of winter, their homes 
pillaged and burned, by the savage big- 
otry of their Gentile neighbors. 

A firm hand seized the reins that fell 
from Joseph Smith's lifeless grasp. Brig- 
ham Young showed that he had justly 
been styled "the Lion of the Lord." This 
uncouth man, who did not know how to 
spell his own name, and began it with a 
small "y," had in him the qualities that 
make great leaders — singleness of pur- 
pose, a clear head, and a resolute will. He 
had the aggressive energy of Luther, the 



54 MORMON SAINTS 

resourceful fervor of Loyola. He was the 
man for the hour; no other could have 
saved Mormonism from disintegration in 
the crisis that followed its leader 's fall. 

Much as he has been maligned, Brigham 
was undoubtedly sincere. He accepted 
the Mormon revelation at par; while an 
autocratic spirit, rising from his exuber- 
ant vitality, led him to turn all things to 
his own aggrandizement. Not versed in 
the subtleties of ethical dialectics, but 
holding that might makes right, his crude 
conscience justified any means by the end 
in view. With ease he wrested the scepter 
of Mormondom from Sidney Kigdon, who 
believed himself entitled to the succession. 
Sidney was excommunicated, and deliv- 
ered unto Satan for a thousand years. 
Smith's erratic rule was succeeded by a 
wise, far-seeing, and eminently practical 
policy, administered with despotic inflex- 
ibility, extending alike to things spiritual 
and things temporal. ' ' Brickham young ' ' 
became Pope and Czar in one person. 

With wonderful energy and generalship, 
Brigham led the Saints' hegira to the 
region beyond the Bockies. Fanatical 
faith buoyed up the spirits of the exiles, 
steeling them for the wearisome journey. 
Hardships were many, but on the far hori- 
zon gleamed the star of hope. They plod- 
ded across the trackless prairie — a seem- 



TO THE PROMISED LAND 55 

ingly interminable caravan. There were 
twelve to fifteen thousand men, women and 
children; over three thousand ox-carts and 
wagons; thirty thousand head of cattle, 
horses and mules in great number, un- 
counted droves of sheep. For nigh two 
years this pilgrimage through the wilder- 
ness continued; the jolting of the wagons 
being used to churn the milk. The church 
had no place of fixed abode; still the 
Saints, shaken with ague and blistered 
with fevers, had ever before their eyes the 
vision of the new city. As they journeyed 
on they received from the savage Indians 
of the wilds a welcome that stood in glar- 
ing contrast with the inhuman treatment 
accorded them by the Christian communi- 
ties they had left behind. "We have both 
suffered," said a Pottawattomie chief; 
"we must help each other, and the Great 
Spirit will help us both. ' ' 

A pioneer band of the bravest and best 
men was sent ahead to spy out the land 
and prepare the way. The romance of 
Mormonism was not yet at an end. Noth- 
ing in Greek myth is more beautiful than 
this forlorn hope scattering seeds of the 
sunflower along the route, so that the 
mighty host that followed was shown the 
way by patches of golden bloom. On the 
twenty- second day of July, 1847, they en- 
tered the valley where they founded the 



56 MORMON SAINTS 



a 



City of the Great Salt Lake." And now, 
if romance had not fled, there also was 
still in their midst the saving grace of hu- 
mor, which had made the history of Mor- 
monism seem almost a huge joke from the 
first. In an exhortation to the Saints, the 
Apostles commanded them to "bring their 
gold, their silver, their copper, their zinc, 
their tin, and brass, and iron, and choice 
steel, and ivory, and precious stones," to 
adorn the new Zion. So the Saints came, 
obedient to the command, and fell to work 
pitching rude shelters, splitting logs, hoe- 
ing corn, and planting potatoes. 

Then the miracle of the crickets oc- 
curred, convincing the exiles that the Lord 
had been their guide. Clouds of fierce de- 
vouring insects descended upon the young 
crops. And it came to pass that white 
gulls fell upon the crickets and devoured 
them. This incident has grown into an 
elaborate myth, though naturalists decline 
to see anything supernatural in it. Those 
gulls were always numerous about the 
Great Salt Lake; the crops attracted the 
crickets, and the crickets attracted the 
birds. Naturalists are always coming 
along with such easy explanations to spoil 
perfectly good miracles. The real mir- 
acle, however, was the perseverance of the 
Saints. 
Soon the "Great American Desert" put 



TO THE PROMISED LAND 57 

on robes of fragrance. At first grain was 
scarce, so that thistle-tops were eaten, 
soup-stock was made by boiling the hide 
roofs of houses, and the beef obtainable 
was so tough that they had to grease the 
saws to cut it, yet faith and toil won the 
victory. In a few years abundance pre- 
vailed, leaving leisure for the amenities 
of life. A great university was projected 
in 1850; a new alphabet of thirty-two 
letters was invented ; a library was found- 
ed, and well stocked with books from the 
East; and a year later even a dramatic 
association had been formed, giving cred- 
itable stage entertainments. In 1853 the 
corner-stone of another new temple was 
laid, amid the blare of brass bands and the 
rodomontade of the Apostles. 

The community throve marvelously. 
That they were governed wisely and well 
is proved by the manner in which Brigham 
Young stamped out the gold fever in 1849, 
when many wanted to migrate to the Cali- 
fornia Ophir. "If we were to go and dig 
up chunks of gold," argued Young, "or 
find it in our valley, it would ruin us." 
Sound statecraft — losing some of its point 
and force by the declaration that "the true 
use of gold is for paving streets and cover- 
ing houses." 

Fresh troubles were brewing. The 
state of Deseret was organized — which 



58 MORMON SAJNTS 

means the land of the honey-bee, accord- 
ing to the Booh of Mormon. The Mexican 
war had resulted in the cession of Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico to the Union. Ne- 
vada and Utah then formed part of Cali- 
fornia, so that the Mormons again had 
come under the jurisdiction of the United 
States. A territorial form of government 
was extended over the "State of Deseret," 
and Brigham Young was appointed gov- 
ernor. Ere long there moved into the 
thriving community Gentiles, who would 
not accept as final the judgments of Mor- 
mon courts, presided over by Mormon 
bishops. Perhaps they were justified in 
this attitude, for Brigham Young himself, 
in the patriarchal role of supreme judge, 
once threatened to dismiss the whole epis- 
copal bench, with the words: "You are 
not fit to decide a case between two old 
women, let alone two men." 

The troubles were aggravated when 
polygamy was openly promulgated as a 
plank of the church platform. It was al- 
so charged that Brigham had converted to 
his own use moneys appropriated by Con- 
gress for government buildings. Other 
usurpations and abuses of various kinds 
added fuel to the flame. To balance the 
account, many of the judges and officials 
sent to the territory by the government at 
\ Washington were denounced by the Mor- 



TO THE PROMISED LAND 59 

mons as incompetent and unscrupulous ad- 
venturers, to whom these appointments 
had fallen as crumbs from the table of po- 
litical patronage. As if the fat graft were 
only for the sleek saint ! Finally the re- 
presentatives of the nation were driven 
out of the state by the exasperated Mor- 
mons, and Brigham solemnly declared 
that if others like them were sent, they 
would be slain. 

Now an army was sent to Utah to put 
down the incipient insurrection. A dra- 
matic climax followed. Brigham pro- 
claimed martial law, assumed the role of 
dictator, and the Mormon militia, the re- 
organized Nauvoo Legion, was mobilized 
to meet the troops expected to re-establish 
the Federal supremacy. 



60 MORMON SAINTS 



CHAPTER VII 



Mormon Beliefs and Practices 

While the hosts of the "chosen people" 
are preparing to repel the "mercenary 
rabble" sent against them by President 
Buchanan, let us examine the peculiar sys- 
tem of government — almost a theocracy — 
which held that people together, and still 
obtains among them to-day, modified along 
some lines, elaborated along others, but 
essentially the same. Also let us consider 
those virtues that have made them great, 
those peculiarities that have brought hate 
and obloquy upon them — the same to-day 
as at the outbreak of the Mormon War. 

The church polity of Mormonism is com- 
plex and complete. Its hierarchy includes 
dignitaries enough almost to exhaust the 
English tongue 's store of ecclesiastical ti- 
tles. There are two orders of priest- 
hood, the Melchisedec and the Aaronic; 
there are presidencies, councils, quorums, 
seventies, and stakes; there are prophets, 
patriarchs, apostles, bishops, elders, dea- 
cons, teachers, ad infinitum. About a 
fifth of the Mormon men hold some 
churchly office. Their organization is per- 
fect. Every block of buildings has its 



BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 61 

teacher, who is charged not only with keep- 
ing ablaze the religious faith of those un- 
der him, but is also their mentor in secu- 
lar affairs — in business, in politics, in do- 
mestic life. He is father confessor and 
father inquisitor in one, and is amenable 
only to the ward bishop to whom he re- 
ports. The ward bishops are under a pre- 
siding bishop for the whole town. He in 
turn derives his authority from the ' i First 
Presidency," consisting of the Prophet 
and two Counselors, who direct the af- 
fairs of the entire church. 

This network of surveillance and super- 
intendence centering in the supreme head 
of the church, this concatenation of power 
radiating from the spirit of absolute and 
unquestioning obedience that permeates 
the whole body, moves in secular affairs 
upon principles so empiric and crude that 
statesmen would stand aghast at the re- 
sults. Here are Poor Bichard's maxims 
welded into a system of political economy. 
"Laws," said Brigham Young, "should 
be simple and plain, easy to be compre- 
hended by the most unlearned, void of am- 
biguity, and few in number." There is 
the basis of Mormon legislation. "Pay 
your tithes and mind your own business," 
was and is the fundamental rule of con- 
duct. "Produce what you consume," is 
another bit of homely counsel for plain 



62 MORMON SAINTS 

people; "buy no article from the stores 
that you can do without; permit no viti- 
ated taste to lead you into indulgence of 
expensive luxuries. " And though revela- 
tion had exempted Joseph Smith from toil, 
the church pronounced labor to be honor- 
able, and a duty no less than prayer or 
temple service. Brigham Young worked 
at the carpenter's bench in his own mill. 
Charity was another supreme virtue, and 
was displayed most commendably in the 
treatment of the broken-down Argonauts 
of '49, who were first fleeced on their way 
to the coast. 

Eemarkable also was the attitude of the 
church upon the questions of slavery, tem- 
perance, and woman suffrage. The aboli- 
tionist utterances of some Mormon leaders 
had much to do with the rancor aroused in 
Missouri. Among the hundred and forty- 
three pioneers who entered Utah were sev- 
eral negro freemen. And while Brigham 
held slavery to be a divine institution, he 
also believed that the time would come 
when "the seed of Cain should be redeem- 
ed" — according to tradition the negroes 
were the descendants of Cain, and their 
black skin the mark set upon him by God. 
The Mormon settlers of Utah bought In- 
dian slave children, but only to prevent 
their being killed by their captors. 

The equal rights of woman were always 



BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 63 

recognized; the ballot belonged to male 
and female alike. The territory of Utah 
affords probably "the first instance in the 
United States where woman suffrage was 
permitted" — a privilege later withdrawn 
before statehood could be obtained. In- 
deed, the Mormons may also claim to have 
originated the "new woman," as King 
Strang, who ruled an island colony in Lake 
Michigan, published an ukase which made 
"bloomers" obligatory, provoking a re- 
bellion that ended in his downfall — not the 
first sovereign to trip over woman's skirts. 

Temperance and sobriety were inculcat- 
ed from the start. At Far West and Nau- 
voo a rigorous prohibition law was pro- 
mulgated — with a rather incongruous 
amendment reserving to Joseph Smith the 
sole privilege of selling liquor. And 
among the earliest enactments at Salt 
Lake City was one forbidding the sale or 
use of ardent spirits. In the heart of 
winter, and amid the horrors of the en- 
forced hegira, it had been resolved that 
"no corn should be made into whiskey, 
and that if any man was preparing to dis- 
till corn into whiskey, or alcohol, the corn 
should be taken and given to the poor." 

These homely virtues and enlightened 
principles of public policy would have 
made any people great; but in Mormon- 
ism they were linked with beliefs inherent- 



64 MORMON SAINTS 

ly so absurd and practices so unconven- 
tional that civilization laughed at the 
former and strove by every shift of di- 
plomacy or force to uproot the other. As 
a fair sample of the ludicrous may be in- 
stanced the new astronomy which was to 
be taught in the Deseret University, and 
was to overturn the orthodox theories of 
science; putting the sun, the great orb 
Kolob, into the center of the universe, let- 
ting it rotate once in a thousand years and 
all the host of heaven revolve around it, 
while the law of gravitation was entirely 
abolished. For was it not so written 
in the Booh of Abraham? 

Mormon theology is of a truth fearfully 
and wonderfully made. It is founded up- 
on the Book of Mormon, modified by in- 
numerable later revelations vouchsafed 
unto Smith, Eigdon, and Young. Accord- 
ing to its prime tenets there is one chief 
God, Jehovah, who has three persons ; this 
supreme God has a wife, a female deity; 
from them has sprung a whole pantheon 
of minor gods and goddesses, besides 
angels and the human race. 

God the Father, according to Joe Smith, 
"has a body of flesh and bones as tangi- 
ble as man's," According to Brigham 
Young, "God was Adam, and Eve was one 
of his wive&." Mormon apologists do not 
defend this doctrine, but it was certainly 



BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 65 

promulgated by Young in a sermon 
preached April 9, 1852, and is just as au- 
thentic as any other revelation or tenet of 
Smith and his successors. According to 
later theologians, the supreme God has in- 
deed the form of a man, but his body is 
composed of spiritual matter — that is, 
matter of extreme fineness. He resides 
in the center of the universe, near the 
great star Kolob, each millennial rotation 
of which marks a divine day. Jesus was 
literally the son of God, but differs from 
him only in age and authority — seniority 
presides. The Holy Spirit is matter in 
its most rarified form, a subtle fluid, like 
electricity, filling all space. 

Heaven is partitioned into three abodes 
— the telestial and the terrestrial, for 
those who have neither accepted nor re- 
jected the gospel; and the celestial, for 
those who believe and have been baptized. 
The manner of baptism is by immersion, 
infant baptism being rejected. Curious 
in this connection is the doctrine of "bap- 
tism for the dead," according to which 
any one, believing a deceased relative to 
be in torment, can go and be baptized as 
his proxy, so securing his admission to 
the realms of bliss. These, the celestial 
heaven, would ultimately be established 
upon earth, when the great white throne 
would stand in Jackson county, Missouri. 



66 MORMON SAINTS 

All who accept Joseph Smith as the Pro- 
phet of the Lord will there reign with 
Christ for a thousand years; apostates, 
who are guilty of the sin against the Holy 
Ghost, will be bound, and cast into the pit 
with Satan and his angels. Apropos of 
which it may be remarked that the Mor- 
mon leaders frequently and with the ut- 
most sang-froid consigned people to To- 
phet for offenses far less grievous than 
the sin against the Holy Ghost. "Zach- 
ary Taylor is dead and in hell, and I am 
glad of it," declared Young, because of 
real or fancied slights put upon the Mor- 
mons by Taylor. A Federal judge sent 
to the territory angrily protested, when 
the leader of the Saints coolly told him "he 
need have no doubt about it, for he would 
see him when he went there himself. ' ' 

Upon this melange of chiliastic dreams 
and calculating invention, communistic 
ideas had been engrafted from the start, 
and later toned down into a system of tith- 
ing when they failed to arouse enthusiasm 
among those who had and who were ex- 
pected to impart unto those who had not. 
The system of tithing, as rigorously en- 
forced, is one secret of the church's great 
power — it provided unlimited sinews of 
war, which the leaders never scrupled to 
use in the most effective way. "When I 
put my hand into one pocket," Brigham 



BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 67 

Young is credited with saying, "I put 
Congress into the other/' Through the 
tithing system millions of dollars are an- 
nually poured into the coffers of the 
church. 

Strangest among the many curious cere- 
monies of the church is that of "endow- 
ment" — a sort of revival of heathen mys- 
teries and medieval miracle-plays, closely 
analogous to some lodge initiations. Af- 
ter purification and anointing with oil, a 
ritual of dramatic hocus-pocus, doubtless 
impressive enough to the simple-minded, 
is gone through; blood-curdling oaths of 
fidelity and secrecy are imposed, grips are 
given, and the neophyte carries home his 
endowment robe, which he henceforth re- 
gards as his most precious possession. It 
is supposed to shield from disease — a the- 
ory hardly harmonizing with the fact that 
every devout Mormon is buried in this 
garment. It is even claimed to be bullet- 
proof, and had not Joseph Smith neglected 
to wear his on the day he was mobbed his 
enemies could not have harmed him. Cer- 
tainly this was inexcusable carelessness in 
a Prophet, who must have known they 
were coming! 

Two leading tenets in the practical the- 
ology of the church have roused most of 
the opposition it has met almost from its 
earliest day — polygamy, which will be 



68 MORMON SAINTS 

considered in a later chapter, and the 
atonement of blood. According to this 
latter doctrine, there are certain sins that 
can hope for no pardon upon this earth. 
Among these are the shedding of guiltless 
blood, apostasy, marital infidelity on the 
wife's part, and revealing the inner work- 
ings of the Endowment House. Blood 
alone can atone for these sins — and the 
Mormons did their best to make the atone- 
ment efficacious. Said Brigham Young in 
a public sermon: "I could refer you to 
plenty of instances where men have been 
righteously slain in order to atone for 
sins. I have seen scores and hundreds of 
people for whom there would have been a 
chance in the last resurrection if their 
lives had been taken and their blood 
spilled on the ground as a smoking incense 
to the Almighty.' ' Human sacrifice, for 
by no other term could it be described, was 
one outgrowth of this doctrine; the other 
development was plain murder. 

To carry out these teachings, worthy of 
Thugs or Assassins, a secret society was 
formed, sworn to support the head of the 
church in all things. They were called 
the "Destroying Angels," or Danites — 
"Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an 
adder in the path, that biteth the horse's 
heels, so that his rider shall fall back- 
ward" (Genesis 49:17). The organization 



BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 69 

already existed while the Saints were in 
Missouri ; to this there is ample direct tes- 
timony, apart from the circumstantial evi- 
dence in the attempt to assassinate the 
Governor — indeed, its germ may be found 
at Kirtland, in 1837, when one Grandison 
Newell charged Smith with inciting a 
young Mormon neophyte to take his life. 

Many murders were charged against 
this Danite brotherhood, which made the 
Mormons a terror to their neighbors. No 
less a witness than the Prophet's own 
brother declared under oath that before 
leaving Nauvoo fifteen hundred of the 
Saints "solemnly swore, in the presence 
of Almighty God and his holy angels, that 
they would avenge the blood of Joseph 
Smith upon the nation, and so teach their 
children; and that they would henceforth 
and forever begin and carry out hostility 
against this nation, and keep the same a 
profound secret now and forever.' ' This 
dogma, born of the spirit of revenge in the 
weak and oppressed, made their later 
atrocities seem deeds of piety. Its tragic 
climax, writ large in blood, will be nar- 
rated in the next chapter. 



70 MORMON SAINTS 



CHAPTER VIII 



The Mormon War 

We have seen the Mormons, weak and 
long-suffering under persecution, dissem- 
bling their resentment, at worst plotting 
revenge in secret. Now we shall see them 
powerful and vindictive, flinging down the 
gauntlet of defiance to a great nation. 
Their legislature, in which were now some 
astute lawyers, went so far as to pass one 
act that virtually abrogated the entire 
body of the English Common Law. 

Conquering the wilderness, the Mor- 
mons came to know their own strength; 
now they were ready to try it against the 
mailed fist of civilization. It must be ad- 
mitted that they showed themselves su- 
perior, both in strategics and in diplom- 
acy, to the trained troops and leaders sent 
against them. The bloody drama of se- 
cession, which a few years later was to be 
enacted upon the national stage, had a 
prologue upon the great plateau of the 
West. 

President Buchanan deposed Brigham 
Young from the governorship, which was 
conferred upon Alfred Cumming; Judge 
Delana R. Eckels, of Indiana, was made 



THE MORMON WAR 71 

chief justice of the territory. By June 
of 1858 over six thousand men were in 
Utah, or on the march, to re-establish Fed- 
eral supremacy and maintain the author- 
ity of the Federal courts. 

"Give us ten years of peace/' Brigham 
Young had said, ' ' and we will ask no odds 
of the United States." He had foreseen 
this conflict when his people entered the 
valley. Now the die of war had been cast, 
and the crafty old leader prepared to re- 
pel aggression by assuming the aggres- 
sive. His assurance, whether genuine or 
theatric, was marvelous. In an immense 
convocation of his people he announced 
that at no distant day he would himself 
become President of the United States, or 
would bestow the office upon whomsoever 
he choose. His own courage inspired his 
followers ; there was a fury of preparation 
for the conflict; every house was turned 
into an armory and arsenal. Fierce de- 
termination glowed in every heart. Dur- 
ing divine service at the tabernacle, soon 
after the approach of the troops was an- 
nounced, an apostle asked all to raise their 
hands who would burn down their homes, 
fell the trees, and lay waste the fields, if 
the foemen entered the valley. Over four 
thousand were in that congregation — and 
every hand was raised. There is no doubt 
that the United States army, if it had 



72 MORMON SAINTS 

forced the passes of the mountains and 
marched upon Salt Lake City, would have 
found a smouldering Moscow in a howling 
wilderness. 

The Mormons at once inaugurated ef- 
fective guerrilla warfare. They captured 
or destroyed the supply-trains of the in- 
vading army, stampeded their cattle, 
burnt every available shelter on the line 
of advance. The army went into winter 
quarters destitute and discouraged — al- 
most justifying the contemptuous hyper- 
bole of an elder: "A swarm of long- 
billed mosquitoes could eat them up at a 
supper spell. " While harmony and pa- 
triotic self-sacrifice prevailed at Salt Lake 
City, factions were snarling at each 
other's heels in Washington, and unani- 
mity was present only among the horde 
of contractors who fleeced the government 
by furnishing the army wretched supplies 
at exorbitant prices, as in every war. 
Flour, for instance, cost the trifle of $570 
a ton. 

The ending of the Mormon War was not 
creditable to the United States. Presi- 
dent Buchanan has been described by a 
fair historian as "not at heart an unjust 
man," but he "lacked the requisite back- 
bone." His messages were filled with 
noble phrases, but he wavered and hesi- 
tated, and usually in the end compromised 






THE MORMON WAR 73 

with evil. That is what he did in the 
Mormon muddle, in which he lost interest 
after he had set his headstrong will upon 
putting the vicious Lecompton constitu- 
tion through to browbeat Kansas. While 
the Federal forces sent to Utah were still 
hibernating near Fort Bridger, Col. 
Thomas L. Kane, a Pennsylvanian, friend- 
ly to the Mormons and perhaps a secret 
agent or lobbyist of Brigham Young's, was 
sent by the President with the olive- 
branch of peace. Kane reached Utah by 
way of California, and succeeded in his 
mission of conciliation. The Mormons 
nominally submitted, and an escort of 
their militia conducted the new governor 
to the state capital, where his authority 
was acknowledged. Amnesty was grant- 
ed the Saints, and the troops marched in- 
to Salt Lake City, which was deserted by 
its thirty thousand inhabitants, save for a 
resolute little handful who were to apply 
the torch if the military took possession. 
Governor Cumming followed the fleeing 
Saints, who had already decided to emi- 
grate to Sonora, and prevailed upon them 
to return. For several years the soldiers 
were quartered within forty miles of the 
town, but no further trouble arose. The 
sport had cost the nation over fifteen mil- 
lions of dollars, and nothing had been 
gained. 



74 MORMON SAINTS 

At the beginning of this "wax" oc- 
curred the horrible Mountain Meadows 
massacre. It was the logical outcome of 
the Blood Atonement doctrine, and there 
is not the shadow of a doubt that it was in- 
stigated by leading Mormons and execut- 
ed by men of the Nauvoo Legion and In- 
dian allies of the Saints. Parley Pratt, 
one of the Apostles, the man who had 
" converted" Sidney Eigdon, had been 
killed by a man whose wife Pratt had 
lured into his harem. " Innocent blood" 
cried to heaven for vengeance. The op- 
portunity soon offered itself. Pratt's 
slayer was from Arkansas, and now an 
Arkansan emigrant train was crossing 
Utah. The killing of Pratt was expiated 
by those hapless home-seekers, of whom 
probably none had ever heard of Pratt. 
Mormon scouts on fleet horses sped in ad- 
vance of the train, and warned the Saints 
along the route not to furnish the emi- 
grants food nor afford them shelter. The 
company would have died of starvation in 
the midst of abundance, had not the bul- 
lets of the Danite avengers cut them off. 
A hundred and twenty-seven men, women, 
and children perished in that slaughter. 
The bodies were left unburied, a prey 
to the coyotes. A Mormon, moved by 
pity, buried some of the bleached bones 



THE MORMON WAR 75 

long after, and is said to have been ex- 
communicated for his act. 

Now comes the astounding sequel. In 
those courts whose authority had just 
been established by the strong hand of the 
United States, it was impossible to secure 
the punishment of the men who were 
guilty of this crime. Despite evidence of 
the strongest kind, a Mormon grand jury 
would not find bills against any man ac- 
cused, and was discharged by a disgusted 
judge as "a useless appendage to a court 
of justice." Some suspected ones were 
later arrested on bench-warrants, which 
caused a general stampede of prominent 
Mormons to the mountains — strong pre- 
sumptive evidence of uneasy consciences. 
Eighteen years after the massacre, a 
single one of the leaders was executed; 
Bishop John D. Lee was made the scape- 
goat — the remainder, and the church, went 
scot-free — though direct and circumstan- 
tial evidence of their complicity was not 
wanting, even reaching to Young. 

We have seen the Mormon war closed 
by an armed truce. Another war — a po- 
litical struggle — was to be carried for- 
ward to a triumphant ending by the astute 
Saints. The struggle for statehood was 
never relaxed one moment until the goal 
had been attained. 



76 MORMON SAINTS 



CHAPTER IX 



In Solomon's Footsteps. 

The institution which for years formed 
the impassable barrier to Utah's admit- 
tance into the sisterhood of states — an in- 
stitution that seems interwoven with the 
very texture of the church — was polygamy. 

It will surprise many people to learn 
that the Book of Mormon in the plainest 
terms forbids polygamy. Scripture itself 
is silent upon this point; but Joseph 
Smith's Bible has an explicit prohibition 
that can not be equivocated away by any 
sophistry of exegetics. Here are the 
words : 

"And were it not that I must speak unto you concern- 
ing a grosser crime, my heart would rejoice exceedingly. 
* * * For behold, thus saith the Lord, This people 
begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the 
Scriptures. * * * David and Solomon truly had 
many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable 
before me, saith the Lord. * * * Wherefore, my 
brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord ; 
for there shall not any man among you have save it 
be one wife, and concubines he shall have none; for I, 
the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women." 

This passage shows that a multiplicity 



IN SOLOMON'S FOOTSTEPS 77 

of wives formed no part of the Prophet's 
original scheme. Indeed, in the early 
days of his career he found it difficult 
enough to support a single wife, much less 
a harem of forty, as was charged against 
him later. John Hyde, one of the few 
apostates who spoke with fairness of the 
church after seceding, said "polygamy 
was not the result of Smith's policy, but 
of his passions." It was the affluence and 
the opportunities of Nauvoo days that led 
him into the "grosser crime;" an idle and 
luxurious mode of life, two hundred and 
twenty pounds of "too too solid flesh" — 
these wrought the Prophet's fall from 
grace. 

There is ample evidence of immoralities 
practiced by Smith and others at Nauvoo, 
and perhaps earlier, which gradually 
transpired, and made necessary the "spe- 
cial revelation" given in 1843, sanction- 
ing and commanding a plurality of wives. 
For nine years that revelation was kept 
secret, and the practice was publicly de- 
nied — partly because Illinois had laws 
to punish bigamy, but chiefly in order that 
proselyting might not be hampered. Not 
until 1852, Young at Salt Lake City offi- 
cially proclaimed the doctrine, and ever 
since it has been a cardinal tenet of the 
church, which simultaneously made the 
startling discovery that "Jesus had sev- 



78 MORMON SAINTS 

eral wives, among them Mary and Martha, 
the sisters of Lazarus. ' ' 

Simple polygamy was not broad enough 
for these peculiar Saints, so they invented 
that doctrine of celestial ensealment which 
made Mormonism almost a revival of the 
obscene cult of the Babylonian Mylitta. 
The practical application of the doctrine 
meant sexual promiscuity under the sanc- 
tion of the church. A man might wed as 
many "spiritual" wives as he could per- 
suade to enter into that relation with him 
— while they might at the same time be the 
temporal wives of other men. A woman 
might have any number of "celestial" hus- 
bands — that is, she could be "sealed" to 
some dead person, who had an earthly 
proxy, with all marital rights, save that 
the children born were credited to the 
Saint in heaven. The workings of this 
system can not be fully comprehended by 
the Gentile world — they formed part of the 
secrets of the Endowment House, whose 
precincts might not be entered by the pro- 
fane. But enough is known to make it 
clear that "any one of either sex can be 
sealed to any number of persons of the op- 
posite sex, whether married or single." 

The Keorganized Church, a protesting 
sect which sprang up in repudiation of 
Brigham Young, never countenanced poly- 
gamy, but numbers only about 50,000 ad- 



IN SOLOMON'S FOOTSTEP/5 79 

herents. The orthodox Saints defended 
polygamy by an elaborate line of argu- 
ment, the salient points of which were as 
follows: If it is not wrong to have one 
wife, why should the possession of two, or 
a score, be stigmatized as a crime ? Abra- 
ham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and 
Solomon had many wives and concubines, 
and it was accounted unto them for right- 
eousness — nowhere in the Bible is there a 
word of disapproval. Besides, according 
to Mormon theology, all space is peopled 
with spirits awaiting incarnation; unless 
there is plural marriage these spirits can 
not all be supplied with human bodies to 
join the ranks of the saints on earth, and 
so attain to salvation. Such are the scrip- 
tural and theological warrants for the 
practice ; no less importance is attached to 
the argument based upon the experience of 
mankind and the constitution of human so- 
ciety. Statistics will prove that there are 
many more women than men; so, unless 
there is plural marriage, many women 
must perforce remain unmarried. Mono- 
gamy, it is further claimed, makes the one 
wife more truly the slave of her husband 
than are the many wives of the polygam- 
ist; it promotes licentiousness and fosters 
prostitution ; and finally, it exists in name 
only, for among the professedly mono- 
gamic communities practical polygamy is 



80 MORMON SAINTS 

just as common as among the openly 
polygamous. 

These plausible contentions may not be 
lightly dismissed. Let us analyze them in 
detail. 

Admitted, that if it is not wrong for a 
man to have one wife, it can not be wrong 
for him to have a dozen. The same premi- 
ses lead to the conclusion that if it is not 
wrong for a woman to have one husband, 
it can not be wrong for her to have a dozen. 
This the polygamous oracle — who is a 
man, mark you — makes haste indignantly 
to deny. But if we admit that woman is 
man's equal — something more than a slave 
to minister to his appetites, or a beast of 
burden to work in his fields— then she has 
just as strong a claim upon the undivided 
affections and attentions of her husband 
as he has upon her love and care. 

The Bible does not directly interdict 
polygamy — true. It will also be difficult 
to find in it any "Thou shalt not" leveled 
against arson, gambling, and many other 
offenses against society. These have be- 
come crimes only by the evolution of a 
complex society. There is no inherent 
wrong in setting fire to one's barn, provid- 
ed it entails no injury, direct or indirect, 
upon any one else — neighbors, heirs, in- 
surance company. There is no essential 
wrong in carrying goods across a coun- 



IN SOLOMON'S FOOTSTEPS 81 

try's border, provided you do not thereby 
evade paying your fair proportion of the 
expense of government, and so increase the 
proportion others must pay. There could 
be no valid objection against polygamy, 
if it might be harmonized with the Golden 
Rule. A man might have ten wives, pro- 
vided he could show that he loves each with 
his whole heart, as he demands that she 
love him ; and provided he accords to each 
the privilege of espousing ten husbands. 
Nor does his duty end there. He must 
show that he can fulfill all his parental ob- 
ligations springing from each of the ten 
unions; clothe, feed, educate the offspring 
of all as he could that of each one. He 
must show that his conduct does not work 
injustice or injury to any individual nor 
to society. But polygamy is convicted of 
the grossest injustice at the outset — it re- 
gards the wife as a possession of the hus- 
band, as his inferior; it is a relic of the 
ages when women were chattels, spoil of 
war, beasts of burden. It rears a swarm 
of children unloved, uncared for, untaught. 
For the home it substitutes the harem. 
It puts the wife beneath the husband's 
heel, not at his side. 

As for the spirits awaiting incarnation, 
it may be just as well to let them wait. In 
the absence of reliable statistics from 
Mormon writers as to the precise number 



82 MORMON SAINTS 

of those spirits, there is reason to fear that 
under Mormon practice the supply of 
spirits might run short. A dire contin- 
gency! In point of fact, this Buddhist 
speculation, revamped into a Mormon dog- 
ma, requires to be proved before it may 
demand to be refuted. 

The sociological arguments are of the 
flimsiest texture. If women are more 
numerous than men, the greater number 
of births under polygamy would increase 
the disproportion in the same ratio. 
Whether the one wife of the monogamist 
is his slave may be left to the sound sense 
and conscience of any monogamist who 
has them. To say, further, that mono- 
gamy promotes licentiousness and fosters 
prostitution is equivalent to asserting that 
polygamy tends to abolish them. Does 
it? Or does it simply cloak them under 
legalism? If we admit that practical 
polygamy exists in monogamic communi- 
ties, it can not be gainsaid that it is every- 
where regarded as an evil to be con- 
demned and eradicated, rather than as an 
ideal state of society to be desired and 
promoted. 

To sum it up — polygamy may nominally 
diminish crime by legalizing it; but it 
practically increases it by making it safe 
and respectable. There were reported to 
be fifteen thousand polygamists in Utah — 



IN SOLOMON'S FOOTSTEPS 83 

with a population of about 300,000. Will 
any one venture to affirm that there were 
fifteen thousand adulterous husbands in 
the District of Columbia, which had ap- 
proximately the same population? 

But polygamy was not all the sin of 
Mormonism. It is a fact, a logical conse- 
quence of the doctrine of " spiritual en- 
sealment," that Mormonism was polyan- 
drous as well as polygamous. It meant 
practical promiscuity — and that, even in 
the narrower forms of polygamy or poly- 
andry, and considered apart from the men- 
tal, moral and physical deterioration it in- 
evitably brings upon the race, is destruc- 
tive of the home and the family 5 the bases 
of individual character and of national 
greatness. Islam affords an illustration 
of this. The institution of polygamy en- 
abled the Mahometan tribes rapidly to 
overrun and conquer a vast stretch of ter- 
ritory ; but within two centuries it had sap- 
ped the vigor of those races, and the colos- 
sal fabric of their empire slowly crumbled 
into ruin. No polygamous nation is at 
this day a factor in the world's progress. 
Turkey, Persia, and China are political 
ciphers. 

A people's greatness is built upon its 
homes, and the family is the nation in 
miniature. Home is a kingdom where love 
is the supreme law — the love of the one 



84 MORMON SAINTS 

man for the one woman, of the one woman 
for the one man. From this close union 
of interests and affections, this loss of self 
and intermingling of two lives, spring the 
highest, holiest ideals that human kind has 
ever known. Only from such homes, only 
from the nurture of such parents, only out 
of the sunshine of such ideals, can issue 
men and women great and strong to do 
the work of coming time. Without such 
men and women the Kepublie is doomed, 
and the Capitol, like the Alhambra, will 
be to coming ages only a melancholy relic 
of a ruined race. 



SCHEMING FOR STATEHOOD 85 



CHAPTEE X 



Scheming for Statehood 

After the collapse at Nanvoo, the 
shrewd and far-sighted man upon whom 
had fallen the mantle of "Prophet of the 
Lord" realized that it was not enough for 
Mormonism to have its city; it must have 
a holy land all its own — not merely 
a Jerusalem, but a Canaan. So, as soon 
as the region where they settled had be- 
come, through the Mexican war, a part of 
the Union, independent statehood was ever 
kept in view by the Mormon leaders. The 
shadowy state of Deseret was organized, 
but Congress refused to recognize it, and 
a territorial form of government was ex- 
tended over the aspiring commonwealth, 
which was called Utah. 

The Mormons that were driven from 
Illinois to Utah had no very kindly feel- 
ings toward the United States. "There's 
that d — d flag again," cried an elder at 
landing in California after a trip around 
the Horn. But persistent agitation and 
scheming now began, to obtain the state- 
hood that was so essential to the stability 
and growth of the church. As long as 
Utah remained a territory, Mormonism 



86 MORMON SAINTS 

and its leaders would be under Federal 
tutelage and jurisdiction. Utah's admis- 
sion to the sisterhood of states, with home 
rule, with voice and vote in the councils of 
the nation, would make the church impreg- 
nable. So statehood must be attained at 
whatever price. And the Mormons never 
hesitated at any means to achieve that end. 
When might did not avail, recourse was 
had to meekness. Where steel proved in- 
effective, gold was used. After braggado- 
cio failed, systematic deception was in- 
augurated, and the remarkable spectacle 
presented to the world of a great commu- 
nity playing as one man the role of the 
hypocrite. From the first memorial to the 
last lobby, their diplomatic battle for 
statehood was never relaxed till victory 
was won. 

The insuperable obstacle to Utah's ad- 
mission was the institution of polygamy. 
States had been admitted with less popu- 
lation — but public sentiment would not 
permit an action that would make the gov- 
ernment practically powerless in the 
presence of an offense against society. An 
application for statehood in 1862 was not 
only refused, but a stringent law against 
polygamy in any of the territories was en- 
acted. Nor did the intemperate utter- 
ances of prominent Saints tend to improve 
the status of affairs. 



SCHEMING FOR STATEHOOD 87 

It soon became evident that different 
tactics must be adopted ; the country must 
be conciliated, and public feeling lulled. 
Effusive loyalty was counterfeited; the 
unpatriotic utterances of over-zealous 
elders were carefully suppressed, and 
those who made them cautioned. Even 
this availed nothing — as long as the 
Saints upheld and practiced polygamy, no 
political party dared open the door to 
them; and, as Lorenzo Snow, later presi- 
dent of the church, declared, they would 
die a thousand deaths sooner than give 
up this article of their creed. Movements 
on the government's part to suppress the 
evil were met with passionate memorials, 
affirming that the church would obey God 
rather than man. Judicial procedures to 
enforce existing acts were quashed, or 
were too spasmodic to be of any effect; if 
it came to a trial, this was usually a par- 
ody upon justice. Each party was afraid 
of the other ; the representatives of the na- 
tion feared to provoke the Saints, while 
these did not dare openly to defy the na- 
tion. 

In August of 1877 Brigham Young died, 
leaving seventeen wives, fifty-six children, 
and an estate valued at $2,000,000. John 
Taylor, who had been in Carthage jail and 
was wounded by the mob that killed Jos- 
eph Smith, succeeded to the presidency of 



88 MORMON SAINTS 

the church. Under Taylor's regime the 
troubles of the Saints multiplied. He had 
not the astute mastery, the intuitive knowl- 
edge of men, which distinguished Young. 
Whereas Young had been able to maintain 
the "divine" institution of polygamy de- 
spite Gentile persecution, the church was 
now hard pressed by its foes. Still, with 
fanatical tenacity, they held on to this re- 
pugnant tenet. Sooner than surrender it, 
one colony emigrated to Mexico, where 
they founded a settlement now prosperous 
and growing; another host invaded Cana- 
da, and gained a firm foothold there. The 
leaders of the hierarchy, who could not or 
would not leave Utah, had to take to the 
mountains, or live in concealment, until 
the day of tribulation should be past. It 
is told of Wilford Woodruff, the Presi- 
dent-Prophet who succeeded Taylor, that 
while hiding from the officers of the law 
he cut a field of grain by moonlight with a 
hand-sickle, beginning in the middle of the 
field and working outward, cutting all but 
the outer waving walls that hid him. 
Such was the unbending spirit and un- 
wearying energy of those men. 

Persecutions thickened — indeed, the na- 
tional government stepped very close to 
the bounds of constitutional authority in 
its repressive measures. The Edmunds act 
of 1882 resulted in the disfranchisement of 



SCHEMING FOR STATEHOOD 89 

twelve thousand polygamists within two 
years. It was even proposed to abolish 
the legislature, and govern Utah by a com- 
mission appointed by the President. New 
applications for statehood were turned 
down; appeals to the Supreme Court re- 
sulted in nothing. Many Saints were cast 
into prison — principally on charges of il- 
legal cohabitation, for polygamy, owing to 
the secrecy of the marriage rites, could 
rarely be proved ; still the practice contin- 
ued unabated, hiding from the world's eye 
in the cloistered chambers of Temple and 
Endowment House. 

Then came the draconian Edmunds- 
Tucker act of 1887. Vast possessions of 
the church were escheated. Congress 
took the right of suffrage away from wo- 
men, who, strangely enough, through their 
implicit obedience to the priesthood, had 
for seventeen years formed the mightiest 
bulwark of polygamy. Then followed a 
proposition, which passed both houses of 
Congress in 1890, to disfranchise all Mor- 
mons, whether polygamists or not, as Ida- 
ho already had done. 

In this crisis the change of policy was 
adopted which saved the church from dis- 
integration and gained statehood for Utah. 
Stubborn force had failed ; resort was now 
had to hypocrisy and fraud. Prophet Wil- 
ford Woodruff had a revelation as oppor- 



90 MORMON SAINTS 

tune as any that ever came to Smith. In 
a petition to the President, asking for par- 
don and restoration of the franchise to 
the convicted polygamists, the statement 
was made that "in September, 1890, the 
present head of the church, in anguish and 
prayer, cried to God for help for his flock, 
and received permission to advise the 
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-Day Saints that the law command- 
ing polygamy was henceforth suspended." 
Suspended for how long? 

The hypocritical game was played with 
consummate cunning. Accounts were 
published abroad of the disfavor with 
which polygamy was now viewed, and of 
its decline; prominent Mormons denoun- 
ced it; a plank against it, formulated by 
Mormons, was adopted by a territorial 
convention; a prohibition of it was even 
suggested as an amendment to the consti- 
tution of the United States. 

At the same time the Mormons suddenly 
became Republicans and Democrats, the 
old People's party of the church, opposed 
to the Liberal party of the Gentiles, being 
abandoned. It was hinted, even bluntly 
promised, that whichever party gave Utah 
statehood would receive its electoral vote 
and its congressional and senatorial sup- 
port. The ruse succeeded completely. 
President Harrison extended amnestv to 



SCHEMING FOR STATEHOOD 91 

polygamists, and then, under Cleveland's 
administration, on the first day of Janu- 
ary, 1896, Utah became a state, after hav- 
ing been refused admittance six times. 
The crafty apostles had caught the old 
political parties with guile. It is evident, 
from the events of later years, that it 
never had been the intention to abandon 
polygamy — that it was not even suspend- 
ed, as they professed; but that old poly- 
gamous relations were continued, and new 
ones clandestinely formed, as before. 
Utah is a state, and the Mormon Senator, 
Reed Smoot, is one of the most powerful 
machine leaders at Washington. He is 
one of the ablest of the old-school politi- 
cians, and his influence at home may be 
measured by the fact that he was able to 
carry Utah for Taft in the election of 1912, 
when Taft secured only eight electoral- 
votes out of 531 in all the states of the 
Union . 






92 MORMON SAINTS 



CHAPTER XI 



Acts of the Apostles 

The Mormons are the Moravians of 
America, by their missionary zeal and he- 
roic sacrifice. This has been the chief 
secret of their marvelous success and of 
the rapid spread of their doctrines. Two 
apostles, Hyde and Kimball, were sent 
forth as early as 1837, and within three 
years counted over four thousand con- 
verts in Christian England. For over 
half a century there went forth on an av- 
erage a hundred missionaries annually; 
to-day more than three hundred set out 
each year to preach the latter-day gospel, 
and two thousand elders are busy in vari- 
ous fields. Any priest is liable at any 
moment to be sent anywhere by his 
superiors. Obedience is the cardinal vir- 
tue. The elder so commanded goes forth, 
and must even provide his own support 
until the contributions of his converts 
maintain him. There are no Mormon mis- 
sionary debts! 

The absolute abnegation of self which 
characterizes these men is well illustrated 
by a story told of Martin Harris, in the 
early days of the church. He pestered 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 93 

a man to purchase a copy of the Book of 
Mormon, till the man angrily struck him a 
blow in the face. Instantly Harris turned 
the other cheek, and at the same time 
opened the book in his hand at the page 
where Smith's garbled version of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount enjoins this attitude in 
persecution. Such incidents could not 
fail of making deep impressions. 

The second reason of their success, 
given missionary fervor and fanatical de- 
votion, is found in the recognition of their 
limitations. They soon realized that it 
was almost useless to turn to the intelli- 
gent or the well-to-do, so they strove to 
win the ignorant and lowly. Men they 
were after, not money; brawn, not brain; 
if they gained these things, as they shrewd- 
ly foresaw, the others would be added unto 
them. In large measure it was a process 
of "natural selection." The wealthy and 
educated classes laughed at Mormon pre- 
tensions and were not dazzled by Mormon 
promises. The unlearned readily accept- 
ed the new revelation, with its slavishly 
literal interpretation of Scripture; swal- 
lowed the stories of Mormon miracles, and 
the prophecies of the world's impending 
doom. The poor snapped greedily at the 
bait of the Mormon paradise, where want 
was unknown, and fabulous wealth would 
soon abound, and the Lord rained manna 



94 MORMON SAINTS 

down from heaven. The claim to be the 
"chosen people" of the Lord also had its 
unfailing fascination for religious vanity. 

Others, especially in foreign lands, 
where dissenters from state churches la- 
bored under many disabilities, were at- 
tracted by glowing protestations of liber- 
alism. "The kingdom of God," declared 
one effusion, "consists in correct princi- 
ples, and it matter eth not what a man's 
religious faith is — whether he be a Presby- 
terian or a Methodist, or a Baptist, or a 
Latter Day Saint, or ' Mormon/ or a Camp- 
bellite, or a Catholic, or Episcopalian, or 
Mahometan, or even Pagan, or anything 
else. If he will bow the knee, and with his 
tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, 
and will support good and wholesome laws 
for the regulation of society, we hail him as 
a brother, and will stand by him as he 
stands by us in these things; for every 
man's faith is a matter between his own 
soul and his God alone. " With such ut- 
terances the down-trodden, the illiterate, 
the discontented of foreign countries were 
attracted to "the land flowing with milk 
and honey.' ' The Perpetual Emigration 
Fund procured their passage across the 
ocean, and, once at the seat of Mormon 
power, they were speedily reconciled to 
the peculiar doctrines of the Saints. 

The Mormons saw that immigration was 






ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 95 

a blessing to be desired, not a curse to be 
turned aside, as demagogues and deluded 
labor leaders stigmatize it. This pre- 
empting of immigration was one of the 
shrewdest features of Mormon propagan- 
da. They did not send evangelists into 
city slums and rural settlements after the 
strangers had imbibed the air of freedom. 
They did not lie in wait for the immi- 
grants at Castle Garden, like other sects. 
They sent their preachers to foreign 
shores, to preach Mormonism and Ameri- 
ca, till converts by thousands soon crossed 
the seas. Over thirty thousand had been 
won in England alone in the first twenty 
years of their activity. They carried 
their gospel to Malta, to South Africa, to 
India, to the Sandwich Islands. 

The methods of the early missionaries 
were much like those of the Salvation 
Army to-day. Beating drums, blowing 
trumpets, chanting hymns for which they 
had appropriated catchy popular tunes, 
they gathered audiences upon the high- 
ways and byways, and harangued them, 
the Book of Mormon in hand. Being 
American farmers and artisans, the apos- 
tles were mostly fine specimens of man- 
hood, which gave them added standing 
among the degenerate populations of Eu- 
rope. Jules Verne, who doubtless ad- 
mired in Joseph Smith a kindred genius, 



96 MORMON SAINTS 

bears witness to this in Tint Ville Flot- 
tante: " 'Who is yon tall man of haughty 
mien?' I asked. 'He is a Mormon/ was 
the Doctor's reply. 'One of their elders, 
a great preacher in the city of the Saints. 
What a splendid type of manhood ! Look 
at his proud eye, his noble countenance, 
his dignified carriage!' " That man was 
Abram Hatch. 

Here we have the whole Mormon mis- 
sionary scheme. They are pursuing the 
same tactics to-day, toned down to suit 
the times. They are proceeding more 
cautiously, but no less determinedly. 
Though they sometimes attack the cita- 
dels of culture — Congressman Brigham H. 
Roberts was the church's representative 
at the World's Congress of Religions in 
Chicago — their preference is for the more 
primitive communities of the West, the 
Northwest, and the South. Paul's motto — 
' ' This one thing I do ' ' — they have ever in 
mind. All the eloquence of fanaticism is 
concentrated upon the task of spreading 
their doctrine. Wily and smooth-spoken, 
with plausible reasonings and ingenious 
inventions, they soon put to rout the mea- 
ger theological learning of their victims. 

The astute Mormon apologist is able to 
silence his critics by pointing to the vag- 
aries and superstitions of others that pro- 
fess to be more enlightened. To the 



ACTS OP THE APOSTLES 97 

Methodist he would say, "Was not John 
Wesley's lame horse cured by faith ?" 
The Lutheran he would ask, "Did not the 
founder of your faith throw an ink-pot at 
the Devil V 9 Coming down to our own 
times, he would inquire, "Did not Father 
Ignatius and seven others see the Virgin 
Mary on the meadow of Llanthony Abbey, 
on September 15, 1880 ?" And does not 
Mrs. Stetson, once leader of the Christian 
Scientists in New York City, confidently 
await the resurrection of Mrs. Eddy — "it 
may be to-day; it may be next week"? 
Pointing to such phenomena, the astute 
Mormon apologist insists that his faith 
imposes no greater tax upon human credu- 
lity than theirs. 

Not only are the missionaries armed 
with such edged arguments, they are often 
proficient in other arts that win favorable 
opinions for them — along with cash for 
their maintenance. When Elder George 
J. Adams, who was an actor, was sent to 
convert Philadelphia, on arriving there he 
played Richard III for a week to raise a 
missionary fund. He made Shakespeare 
an advance agent for Joe Smith. 

Knowing the opposition they are likely 
to encounter, the Saints seek to establish 
themselves in a community, and ingratiate 
themselves at the firesides of the people, 
before their character and mission become 



98 MORMON SAINTS 

known. Not until they are sure of their 
victims is the mask removed. Whole 
families are gained over in this way be- 
fore they know it is Mormonism that is 
weaving its meshes about them. When 
they learn it, the poison has done its work ; 
their minds are saturated with subtle so- 
phistries, and no reasoning can prevail. 

This indefatigable activity, supplement- 
ed by the missionary literature sent broad- 
cast, is bound to tell in the end. The 
church does not endeavor to displace 
Christianity, but to supplement and com- 
plete it. This veils suspicion ; the seed of 
doctrine once sown, no opposition can root 
it out of simple minds, but rather tends to 
establish and strengthen it. 

If they are persecuted, the missionaries 
bear it with resignation, and so deepen the 
impression they have made. Every elder 
beaten and tarred and feathered is an ar- 
gument in favor of the church for which 
he suffers indignity. 



WHAT WILL BE THE END 99 



CHAPTER XII 



What Will be the End? 

President Wilford Woodruff died in 
1898, and was succeeded by Lorenzo Snow. 
He died in 1901, and was succeeded by 
Joseph F. Smith, nephew of the Prophet. 
This last of the tribe died in November, 
1918, and the present head of the Saints is 
Heber Jedediah Grant . 

The church has prospered greatly in 
these latter days. Its four grand temples 
cost over six million dollars to build. Its 
Tabernacle, comfortably seating 7,000 
people, with a remarkable organ and 
choir, is one of the wonders of the great 
West. To the faithful, these are signs of 
the divine favor. God must look upon the 
Mormons as his beloved children, or he 
would not bless them so abundantly. 

There is no doubt that the practice of 
polygamy was clandestinely resumed, if 
ever it had been suspended. The church 
is active in politics, if ever it was quies- 
cent, even going so far as to dictate which 
of its members shall be Democrats, which 
Eepublicans. Being a sovereign state, 
Utah is governed by its own citizens ; and 
these are overwhelmingly Mormon, while 



100 MORMON SAINTS 

even the Gentile elements largely sympa- 
thize with them. The church practically 
rules the state. True, Utah was admitted 
under the provisions of an enabling act 
forever prohibiting plural marriages ; am- 
nesty was extended to the polygamous 
Saints only upon condition of their dis- 
solving illicit relations — but these provi- 
sions were disregarded, that condition was 
not observed. True, the constitution of 
Utah itself forbids polygamy — but laws, 
to be effective, must be enforced. Joseph 
F . Smith, the last president of the church, 
left five widows when he died, and was the 
father of 43 children. Heber J. Grant, 
the present head, married three wives. 
There has been no reason for any change in 
the Mormon attitude toward polygamy ex- 
cept political strategy. What is to be 
done? 

The question came before the people in 
1899 in a form which demanded an im- 
mediate answer. The people of Utah 
elected Brigham H. Roberts to Congress, 
despite the storm of protest arising from 
all parts of the country. He was a con- 
fessed poly gamist, a defender of that in- 
stitution, and his campaign was conducted 
upon this issue. The question was di- 
rectly put to Utah : Will you condone and 
approve polygamy? The answer was 
Roberts's election by a majority of six 



WHAT WILL BE THE END 101 

thousand, but Congress declared his seat 
vacant; again the Saints had reckoned 
without their host. 

The fantastic accounts of Anti-Mormon 
Apostles, like the tales of "escaped nuns" 
about Catholic convents, need not be taken 
too seriously. There are people who de- 
light in being thrilled with horror, and 
such lecturers cater to that craving. Facts 
open to the light of day are quite suffi- 
cient to convince rational men that Mor- 
monism is not an illuminating factor in 
American life nor a purifying influence in 
American politics. But to tar and feather 
Mormon missionaries is a confession by 
rival sectarians that they are feared — a 
confession neither in accordance with firm 
faith nor Christian charity. To every 
creed must be granted the right to be 
heard — truth is impregnable. 

The Mormon propaganda can be coun- 
teracted only by a campaign of education. 
To spread far and wide the facts as to its 
origin, to expose the dubious character of 
its founders and the absurdity of its doc- 
trines, to show its radical antagonism to 
modern institutions — this is the only 
course that will prevail. There has been 
too much ignorant denunciation, too much 
aggressive malevolence in the past. 
These have always reacted in favor of 
Mormonism. 



102 MORMON SAINTS 

Most important of all would be the po- 
litical redemption of Utah. This, it would 
seem, could be accomplished by encourag- 
ing the influx of Gentile population — by 
guiding thither educated immigrants from 
foreign shores and homeseekers of our 
own land. In the course of two decades 
the Mormon ascendancy would be de- 
stroyed; existing laws, which are ample, 
could be enforced; and the great octopus, 
shorn of its political power, would be 
obliged to assume its proper station 
among the ranting sects that come and go 
and are forgotten — dead sea fruit of ashes, 
which reason at last will scatter to the 
winds. 

Mormonism supplies an instructive ob- 
ject lesson for the lay student of Compara- 
tive Eeligion. It shows how easily a new 
religion can be launched — and new reli- 
gions are still being launched, as witness 
Koreshanity, the Mazdaznan, and others 
even more popular and hardly less fantas- 
tic. Of the human species perhaps not 
more than five per cent, are able to think. 
The vast majority only think they think. 
Ninety-five per cent are sheep, following 
some leader, bowing down to some idol, 
greedily swallowing the predigested men- 
tal food prepared for them by pastors, 
politicians, professors, and the press, four 
P's in one pod. Education does not help 



WHAT WILL BE THE END 103 

very much, as an educated fool is wiser 
only in his own conceit. What may be 
called "the newspaper mind" in our day, 
an unconscious reverence for the printed 
word, animates the vast mob that runs 
after every new folly; in a few years even 
the exertion of reading the daily journals 
may be too much for intellects fed upon 
moving-picture films. If that is true of 
our age, it need not surprise any one that 
Mormonism won its way easily a century 
ago, nor that the pathway of the human 
race, from the prehistoric mists through 
all the centuries of progress, is strewn with 
husks of fallen creeds and bleaching bones 
of dead faiths. 



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